eing personally known to him.

"You must make allowance for the hasty sketch which is here given.
The advanced state of your printing would not allow me time for a more
elaborate investigation.

"Believe me, my dear sir,

"Very sincerely yours,

"W. BETHAM."

We cannot close the illustrations of this ancient and venerable relic
without adding an extract from a most interesting and authentic history
of it contributed by our great Irish antiquarian, George Petrie, Esq.,
R.H.A., M.R.I.A, to the 18th vol. of the Transactions of the Royal Irish
Academy, together with an engraving of it taken from a drawing made by
the same accomplished artist.

"I shall endeavor to arrange these evidences in consecutive order.

"It is of importance to prove that this _cumdach_, or reliquary, has
been from time immemorial popularly known by the name of _Domnach_, or,
as it is pronounced, Donagh, a word derived from the Latin _Dominicus_.
This fact is proved by a recent popular tale of very great power, by Mr.
Carleton, called the 'Donagh,' in which the superstitious uses to which
this reliquary has been long applied, are ably exhibited, and made
subservient to the interests of the story. It is also particularly
described under this name by the Rev. John Groyes in his account of the
parish of Errigal-Keeroch in the third volume of Shaw Mason's Parochial
Survey, page 163, though, as the writer states, it was not actually
preserved in that parish.

"2. The inscriptions on the external case leave no doubt that the
Domnach belonged to the monastery of Clones, or see of Clogher. The John
O'Karbri, the _Comharb_, or successor of St. Tighernach, recorded,
in one of those inscriptions as the person at whose cost, or by whose
permission, the outer ornamental case was made, was, according to the
Annals of the Pour Masters, Abbot of Clones, and died in the year 1353.
He is properly called in that inscription _Comorbanus_, or successor of
Tighernach, who was the first Abbot and Bishop of the Church of Clones,
to which place, after the death of St. Mac-Carthen, in the year 506,
he removed the see of Clogher, having erected a new church, which he
dedicated to the apostles Peter and Paul. St. Tighernach, according to
all our ancient authorities, died in the year 548.

"3. It appears from a fragment of an ancient life of St. Mac-Carthen,
preserved by Colgan, that a remarkable reliquary was given by St Patrick
to that saint when he placed him over