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Ferall O'Gara, as I was well acquainted with your zeal for the glory 

 of God, and the credit of your country. I perceived the anxiety you 

 suffer from the cloud which at present hangs over our ancient Milesian 

 race ; a state of things which has occasioned the ignorance of many, 

 relative to the lives of the holy men, who, in former times, have been 

 the ornaments of our island ; the general ignorance also of our civil 

 history, and of the monarchs, provincial kings, tigherns (lords,) and 

 toisachs (chieftains,) who flourished in this country through a succes- 

 sion of ages, with equal want of knowledge in the synchronism ne- 

 cessary for throwing light on the transactions of each. In your un- 

 easiness on this subject I have informed you, that I entertained hopes 

 of joining to my own labours, the assistance of the antiquarians I held 

 most in esteem, for compiling a body of Annals, wherein those matters 

 should be digested under their proper heads ; judging that should such 

 a compilation be neglected at present, or consigned to a future time, 

 a risk might be run that the materials for it should never again be 

 brought together. In this idea I have collected the most authentic 

 Annals I could find in my travels through the kingdom, (and, indeed, 

 the task was difficult.) Such as I have obtained are arranged in a 

 continued series, and I commit them to the world under your name, 

 noble O'Gara, who stood forward in patronising this undertaking ; 

 you it was who set the antiquarians to work, and most liberally paid 

 them for their labour, in arranging and transcribing the documents 

 before them, in the convent of Dunagall, where the Fathers of that 

 house supplied them with the necessary refreshments. In truth every 

 benefit derivable from our labours is due to your protection and 

 bounty ; nor should it excite jealousy or envy that you stand foremost 

 in this as in other services you have rendered your country ; for by 

 your birth, you are a descendant of the race of Heber, which gave Ire- 

 land thirty monarchs, and sixty-one of which race have died in the 



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