48 Mr. Vetvh^ on the History and Antiquities of Tara Hill. 



If, therefore, Celestius, while a youth, wrote letters from a foreign monastery 

 to his parents at home, the conclusion is almost unavoidable, that his parents were 

 able to read them. And as it appears from Marius Mercator that Celestius had 

 been a disciple and hearer of Pelagius some twenty years before the disclosure of 

 the Pelagian heresy in 405, the natural conclusion is, that letters were certainly 

 known in Ireland, at least to some persons, in the beginning of the fourth cen- 

 tury, and might possibly have been known nearly a century earlier, a period 

 which would extend to Cormac's time. — See Ussher's Primordia, pp. 206 and 

 211, and Rerum Hibernicarum Scriptores ; Prolegomena, p. Ixxxiii. 



Be this, however, as it may, it seems certain that Cormac must have had 

 some knowledge of Roman civilization. It was this knowledge that enabled 

 him to introduce the use of the water-mill into Ireland, as will be shewn in the 

 course of this memoir ; and, if such knowledge had not been acquired from 

 Christian missionaries at home, it might have been an acquisition made during 

 the three years which, according to the Annals of Tighearnach, he spent with 

 his fleet abroad. 



The preceding remarks may serve to excite inquiry into this interesting sub- 

 ject ; but it is not, as already stated, the object of this paper either to affirm or 

 deny the use of letters in Ireland before the formal introduction of Christianity ; 

 what has been said is intended solely to prove that the Four Masters, in their 

 additions to the ancient annalist, had authorities which they believed sufficient 

 for their assertions, and which should not be too hastily rejected as fabulous. 



Before this subject is closed, however, it will be necessary to notice other 

 amplifications of a more recent antiquary, which have tended in a larger degree 

 than those already noticed, to create suspicions of the truth of the Irish histories of 

 this time. The learned author of the Ogygia, not content with the statements 

 of the Four Masters, adds, that there were three schools instituted by Cormac 

 at Tara, in the first of which was taught military discipline, in the second his- 

 tory, and in the third jurisprudence. " Concerning these three schools," he 

 continues, " and the magnificence of Temur in Cormac's time, and his enco- 

 miums and exploits, there is extant in O'Duvegan's book, fol. 175, a poem of 

 183 dlstichs, which begins — 



" ' Ceariiaip na pio j, par Chopmaic. " ' Temur of the kings, fort of Cormac' " 



How far the poem here quoted by O'Flaherty, which is a composition of the 



