Uses of the Round Towers of Ireland, 8fc. 267 



applied until after the time of Cormac Finn, king of Desmond, who died in the 

 year 1215; and, in the second place, no chieftain of the name of Finghin, or 

 Fineen, is found as a Mac Carthy More before that period. Such an inference 

 would, however, be wholly opposed to historical truth, and the tradition of the 

 place, which assigns its erection to St. Finian of Clonard, the instructor of 

 St. Kieran ; for, without dwelling here on the suspicious character of this docu- 

 ment (which I shall have occasion to notice hereafter), or on the evidence which 

 the architecture of this church affords of a far earlier antiquity, we have the 

 authority of Tighernach, the most ancient and accurate of our annalists, who 

 flourished before the name Mac Carthy was applied to a family, that the Fin- 

 ghin, after whom this church was called, was a saint of the primitive Irish 

 church, after whom a holy well in the immediate vicinity of the church was 

 called Tiprait Fingen, as will appear from the following passage : 



"A. D. 758. JJoP" 10 "' comapba TTlochca 6ujbai, .1. mac Copbaio, comapba 

 if pe po bai bliaoam pop uipci cippaic pingen a Cluain mac Noip, ocup ao bach a n-ailicpi i 

 Cluam." 



"A. D. 758. Gorman, comharba of Mochta of Lugbadh [Louth], i.e. the son of Torbach, comh- 

 arba of Patrick : it is he that was a year on the water of Tiprait Fingen [St. Fineen's Well] at 

 Clonmacnoise, and died on his pilgrimage at Cluain." 



The well, alluded to in the preceding passage, still bears the name given to 

 it by the annalist, and is held in the greatest veneration ; and the grave of 

 St. Finghin himself, situated beside the church, is still used as one of the prin- 

 cipal penitential stations of this distinguished sanctuary. But still further : 

 in the Chronicon Scotorum, which is only a copy of the Annals of Tighernach, 

 omitting such entries as do not relate to the Scoti, or Irish people, we have an 

 entry at so early a date as the year 1015, which proves that a church, dedi- 

 cated to St. Finghin, then existed at Clonmacnoise, and would lead to the con- 

 clusion that it was not then of recent construction. The passage is as follows : 



" A. D. 1015. 5 ao ^ m P T m F o" mu P> D0 na FP'^ r et) na r amal ' / T in annpip r' DU a 

 o-copcaip oaip mop Rejlepa pinjin h-i g-Cluain mac Noip." 



" A. D. 1015. A great wind [storm occurred'] in the autumn of this year, the like or similitude 

 of which had not been found [observed] at this time, by which was prostrated the great oak of 

 Regies Finghin at Clonmacnoise." 



That this church became the cemetery of the Mac Carthy family in the 



2 M'2 



