mongst whom was Nial, the intimate of
Moses and Aaron, and the husband of Scota the daughter of Pharaoh, will
soon satisfy himself that, with the exception of a little weight which
may possibly be due to the prominence which the Spanish Peninsula takes
in the several legends, the whole mass is so utterly barren in
historical results, that criticism would be misplaced.

But the Pict and Scot questions are in a different predicament. Like the
Roman and Anglo-Saxon conquests of Britain, the events connected with
them may have occurred within the Historical period--provided only that
that period begin early enough.

How far this may be the case with the Irish annals is a reasonable
question.

That any existing series of Irish annals anterior to the time of the
earliest extant annalist, Tigernach, who lived in the eleventh century,
is cotemporary with the events which it records, so as to partake of the
nature of a register, is what no one has asserted; and hence their
credit rests upon that of such earlier records as may be supposed to
have served as their basis.

These may be poems, genealogies, or chronicles; all of which may be
admitted to have existed. How long? In a more or less imperfect form
from the introduction of Christianity. Is this the extreme limit in the
way of antiquity? Probably; perhaps certainly. Out of all the numerous
pieces of verse quoted by the annalists, one only carries us back to a
Pagan period, and even this is referred to a year subsequent to the
introduction of Christianity. An extract from the annals of the Four
Masters is as follows, A.D. 458, twenty-seven years after the first
arrival of St. Patrick "after Laogar, the son of Nial of the Nine
Hostages, had reigned in Ireland thirty years, he was killed in the
country of _Caissi_ (?) between Eri and Albyn, _i.e._, the two hills in
the country of the Faolain, and the Sun and Wind killed him, for he
violated them; whence the poet sings--

"Laogar M'Nial died in Caissi the green land,
The elements of divine things, by the oath which he violated,
inflicted the doom of death on the king."

The genealogies are generally contained in the poems.

As to annals partaking of the nature of registers the language of the
extant compositions is unfavourable. They are mentioned, of course; but
it is always some one's collection of something before his time--never
the original cotemporary documents. Now the compiler is Cormac McAr