40 Mr. Peteie on the History/ and Antiquities of Tara Hill. 



chief. In which it is stated that he governed his subjects by the Teagasc Riogh 

 and the Laws of Cormac. 



It must be confessed, however, that it was the opinion of the venerable 

 Charles O' Conor of Belanagare, that this work " should not be considered as the 

 composition of King Cormac, but as the epitome of some writer of an ulterior 

 age." But it would seem more probable that the work, as at present preserved, 

 is rather an amplification than an epitome of the original work, of which he is 

 supposed to be the author. * 



Copies of the Teagasc Riogh are preserved in the Books of Glendalough 

 and Ballymote, and translated specimens will be found in the Dublin Penny 

 Journal, vol. i. pp. 213, 214, 215, and 231, 232. The whole would be well 

 worthy of publication, as affording probably the best evidences now to be 

 obtained of the wisdom and amount of civilization current among the Irish in 

 very distant times. 



2. As the institutor of laws the claims of Cormac appear to stand on a 

 firmer basis than his title to the authorship of the Teagasc Riogh. Several 

 tracts of his laws are preserved in MS. in our public libraries, and they are quoted 

 in Cormac's Glossary, an undoubted work of the ninth century. The most 

 perfect copy of these laws, as explained and enlarged by Cennfaela, a writer 

 whose death is recorded in the Annals of Tigheamach, at the year 679, is pre- 

 served in a MS. supposed to be of the fourteenth century, in the library at 

 Stowe. A very interesting dissertation upon the contents and age of this MS. 

 will be found in the Stowe Catalogue, by the late Dr. O' Conor, and, as this 

 Catalogue is of extreme rarity, a few extracts from that dissertation are here 

 given. 



" Description of the MS. of Brehon Laws now before us. 



" On the first leaf, Cennfaelad states that this work consists of two parts. The first is — ' Cuid 

 Cormaic mc Airt Righ Eir — The part composed by Cormac, the Son of Art, King of Ireland; 

 the second is — ' Cuid Cendfaelaid mc Ailill — The part composed by Cenfaelad, ' the Son of 

 Ailil.' 



" Cenfaelad's part consists chiefly of a gloss on the law terms used by Cormac ; but this gloss is 

 of the seventh century, the law terms of which are as unintelligible now as those of the third century 

 were then. He adds that Cormac composed his part at Acill, near Temora, after he had resigned 

 the sovereignty to his son Carbre. We have already seen that Cennfaelad was a writer of the 

 seventh century, and that Acil was one of the Royal residences of Meath. 



