300 Mr. PETRIE'S Inquiry into the Origin and 



really a royal bishop, as he is here called, Dr. O'Conor seems to have enter- 

 tained no doubt; but, in fairness, I should acknowledge that his predecessor, 

 Dr. O'Brien, who correctly translates pi-epcop TTluman, royal bishop of Muns- 

 ter, gives it as his opinion that the writer, Maelbrighdc, " had no other foundation 

 for styling Cormac Royal Bishop o/Munster than because he had repaired the 

 cathedral church of Cashel and two churches at Lismore, and was otherwise 

 reputed a man of a pious and holy life, which is the character St. Bernard gives 

 of him in his book De Vita S. Malachice, according to Malachy's reports to 

 him concerning Cormac, to whom he was doctor and director during his retreat 

 at Lismore, after his dethronement by the faction of his brother Donogh." 



But this reasoning of Dr. O'Brien, though it has received the corroborative 

 support of the usually judicious and critical Dr. Lanigan, is far from being sa- 

 tisfactory, as there is no example to be found in Irish authorities for such a 

 loose application of words, so simple and significant ; and as to the silence of 

 St. Bernard with respect to the episcopal rank of Cormac, it can scarcely be 

 considered of sufficient weight to upset the direct authority of a native and co- 

 temporaneous ecclesiastical writer, because it is obvious that if Cormac were a 

 bishop at all, he could have been only so in the then Irish and irregular way, 

 which St. Bernard would have been the last to acknowledge or recognize, 

 and of which he thus speaks : 



'Verum mos pessimus inoleuerat quorundam diabolica ambitione potentum sedem sanctam 

 obtentum iri hajreditaria successione. Nee eniin patiebantur Episcopari, nisi qui essent de tribu et 

 familia sua. Nee parum processerat execranda successio, decursis iam hac malitia quasi genera- 

 tionibus quindecim. Et eo vsque firmauerat sibi ius prauum, imo omni morte puniendam iniuriam 

 generatio mala et adultera, vt etsi interdum defecissent clerici de sanguine illo, sed Episcopi nun- 

 quam." Vita Molachice, cap. vii. 



The arguments of Dr. Lanigan add but little weight to those of Dr. O'Brien, 

 and are, in some instances, unworthy of his learning. The following are his 

 remarks on this difficult question : 



" Dr. O'Conor (Rer. Hib. Scriptor. 2 Proleg. 141) calls Cormac M'Carthy not only king but 

 bishop of Munster. He quotes Maelbrigte, (of whom see Not. 94 to Chap, xxi.) who styles him 

 rig escop Human. But if escop mean bishop, as Dr. O'Conor thinks, it cannot in this passage be 

 take* in a strict literal sense. Escop is not in several Irish dictionaries, ex g. those of Lhuyd and 

 O'Reilly, who have no other word for bishop than easbog or easbug. O'Brien, however, has, besides 

 easbog, also eascop. Yet, admitting that rig escop signifies king bishop, either Maelbrigte was mis- 



