aid, Ellen Connor. In doing so, I have
not disturbed a single incident in the work; and the reader who may have
perused the first Edition, if he should ever--as is not unfrequently the
case--peruse this second one, will certainly wonder how the additions
were made. That, however, is the secret of the author, with which they
have nothing to do but to enjoy the book, if they can enjoy it.

With respect to the O'Reilly name and family, I have consulted my
distinguished' friend--and I am proud to call him so--John O'Donovan,
Esq., LL.D., M.R.I.A., who, with the greatest kindness, placed the
summary of the history of that celebrated family at my disposal. This
learned gentleman is an authority beyond all question. With respect to
Ireland--her language--her old laws--her history--her antiquities--her
archaeology--her topography, and the genealogy of her families, he is
a perfect miracle, as is his distinguished fellow-laborer in the same
field, Eugene Curry. Two such men--and, including Dr. Petrie, three such
men--Ireland never has produced, and never can again--for this simple
reason, that they will have left nothing after them for their successors
to accomplish. To Eugene Curry I am indebted for the principal fact upon
which my novel of the "Tithe Proctor" was written--the able introduction
to which was printed verbatim from a manuscript with which he kindly
furnished me. The following is Dr. O'Donovan's clear and succinct
history of the O'Reilly family from the year 435 until the present time:

"The ancestors of the family of O'Reilly had been celebrated in Irish
history long before the establishment of surnames in Ireland. In the
year 435 their ancestor, Duach Galach, King of Connaught, was baptized
by St. Patrick on the banks of Loch Scola, and they had remained
Christians of the old Irish Church, which appears to have been peculiar
in its mode of tonsure, and of keeping Easter (and, since the twelfth
century, firm adherents to the religion of the Pope, till Dowell
O'Reilly, Esq., the father of the present head of the name, quarrelling
with Father Dowling, of Stradbally, turned Protestant, about the year
1800).

"The ancestor, after whom they took the family name, was Reillagh, who
was chief of his sect, and flourished about the year 981.

"From this period they are traced in the Irish Annals through a
long line of powerful chieftains of East Breifny (County Cavan), who
succeeded each other, according to the law of Ta