60 Mr. PETKIE'S Inquiry into the Origin and 



adjectively the latter part of the word being understood to be a corruption of 

 mr, land; and it is a singular fact in this inquiry that Dr. O'Conor was him- 

 self obliged to understand and translate it in this sense, as Colgan had done 

 before him. Thus, in translating the passage above given under the year 1148, 

 he has rendered the word nemhedh by terra sancta. 



" Ecclesia Collis Sengan tecto cooperta ab Episcopo O'CaolladHo et a Donnchado O'Carroll, et 

 consecrata ab O'Morgaro Vicario Patrieii, et TERRA SANCTA, i. e. TERRA ECCLESIASTICA assignata 

 ei in Lugmadia." Rerum Hib. Script, vol. iii. p. 761. 



Thus it may be considered as proved beyond question, that the word neimh- 

 edh was not restricted to the sense of holy, or celestial, in which Dr. O'Conor 

 translated it in the compound term Fidhneimhedh ; and that the true interpre- 

 tation must depend on the correct understanding of the word fidh, and its fitness 

 to be joined to it. If, for instance, the word fidh could bear the translation of 

 witness, or index, which Dr. O'Conor has attached to it, the compound term 

 might, indeed, mean, as he has it, celestial witness, or index, though even this 

 would not necessarily imply either a Gnomon, or a Round Tower, for such phrase 

 might with far greater propriety be used to designate the crosses which, in 

 obedience to an ancient canon of the Church, were always erected to mark the 

 limits of the neimhedh, or sanctuary. But if it can be shown that the word 

 fidh will not bear the translation given of it by Dr. O'Conor, while it can be 

 explained with certainty in a sense consistent with the application of the word 

 neimhedh, either substantively, in the sense of sanctuary, or, adjectively, in the 

 sense of holy, his explanation of this compound term must be rejected altogether. 

 To investigate the meaning of the word/d/i is therefore my next object. 



Dr. O'Conor states that the word FIAD, or FIADH, signifies a witness, or index; 

 and it is quite true that it does mean a witness, but not an index, being of the same 

 root as the Saxo-English word wit, as in the phrase to wit, and the word witness, 

 which has also an Irish cognate in the wordfadhnaise. But the word in question 

 is not written /fadA by the Irish Annalists in any one instance, \m.ifidh cxfiodh, 

 which is a totally different word, signifying wood, and cognate with that Saxo- 

 English word. To adduce authorities to prove that this is the meaning of the 

 word would be superfluous, as it is so explained in all the ancient Irish Glossaries 

 and modern Dictionaries, and always translated nemus or sylva, by Colgan ; 

 but the following example of its use will be striking and interesting, as con- 



