to _dia fhognam_.]

[Footnote 18: These words in the Brussels MS. only.]

[Footnote 19: "Apostle" in the Brussels MS.]

[Footnote 20: From "as is verified" to the end of the stanza in the
Brussels MS. only.]

[Footnote 21: The Lismore MS. is here illegible: the rendering follows
the Brussels MS.]

[Footnote 22: The Lismore MS. is here illegible: the translation
follows the Brussels MS.]

[Footnote 23: The Brussels MS. adds "and may it be on thy cheek as
thou goest to thy house."]

[Footnote 24: Bracketed words represent the sense of a passage
evidently lost from the MSS.]

[Footnote 25: Literally "intoxication."]

[Footnote 26: In Brussels MS. only.]

[Footnote 27: The bracketed words in the Brussels MS. only.]

[Footnote 28: The MSS. read "Findian."]

[Footnote 29: These words in the Brussels MS. only.]

[Footnote 30: In this incident again it is necessary to follow
the Brussels MS. in places, as the Lismore MS. is corrupt and
unintelligible.]

[Footnote 31: Literally "'tis a drowning that shall drown this kiln."]

[Footnote 32: These words in the Brussels MS. only.]

[Footnote 33: In Brussels MS. only.]

[Footnote 34: This name in the Brussels MS. only.]

[Footnote 35: Here the Brussels MS. is corrupt.]

[Footnote 36: _Sic_ MSS. We should read "came from heaven,"]

* * * * *

ANNOTATIONS TO THE FOREGOING LIVES

I. THE HOMILETIC INTRODUCTION (VG)

The three Latin lives plunge _in medias res_ at the beginning; but
VG prefixes an introduction borrowed from a Homily on _Charity_. The
Irish text of this homily, with the original Latin, will be found
printed from the fifteenth-century MS. called _Leabhar Breac_ ("The
speckled book") in Atkinson's _Passions and Homilies_ (Dublin 1887).
The text announced by the preacher is clearly suggested by incident
XXII. It has already been shown in the Introduction, that this Life,
with its homiletic preface, was a sermon written to be preached or
read on the festival of the saint (9th September) at Clonmacnois.

The keynote of the Irish homily is struck in this first section. It is
the work of some scholar of Clonmacnois, with a warm enthusiasm for
the dignity of his _alma mater_. The sermon is as much a eulogy of
Clonmacnois as of Ciaran. In the preacher's view, Clonmacnois is
the chief and central church of Ireland, and the source of all
ecclesiastical discipline in the country. Its founder excelled his
fellow-sa