18 Mr. Petrie on the Domnach-Airgid. 



nounced, Donagh, a word derived from the Latin Dominicus. This fact is 

 proved by a recent popular tale of very great power, by Mr. Carleton, called the 

 " Donagh," in which the superstitious uses to which this reliquary has been 

 long applied, are ably exhibited, and made subservient to the interests of the 

 story. It is also particularly described under this name by the Rev. John Groves, 

 in his account of the Parish of Errigal-Keeroge, in the third volume of Shaw 

 Mason's Parochial Survey, page 163, though, as the writer states, it was not 

 actually preserved in that parish. 



2. The inscriptions on the external case leave no doubt that the Domnach 

 belonged to the monastery of Clones, or see of Clogher. The John O'Karbri, 

 the Comharb, or successor of St. Tighernach, recorded in one of those inscrip- 

 tions as the person at whose cost, or by whose permission the outer ornamental 

 case was made, was, according to the Annals of the Four Masters, Abbot of 

 Clones, and died in the year 1353. He is properly called in that inscription 

 Cotnorbanus, or successor of Tighernach, who was the first Abbot and Bishop 

 of the Church of Clones, to which place, after the death of St. Mac-Carthen in 

 the year 506, he removed the see of Clogher, having erected a new church, 

 which he dedicated to the apostles Peter and Paul. St. Tighernach, according 

 to all our ancient authorities, died in the year 548. 



; 3. It appears from a fragment of an ancient life of St. Mac-Carthen, pre- 

 served by Colgan, that a remarkable reliquary was given by St. Patrick to that 

 saint when he placed him over the see of Clogher. 



" Et addidit, [Patricius] Accipe, inquit, baculum itineris mei, quo ego mem- 

 bra mea sustento, et scrinium in quo de sanctorum Apostolorum reliquiis, et de 

 sanctas Mariae capillis, et sancta Cruce Domini, et sepulchro ejus, etaliis reliquiis 

 Sanctis continentur. Quibus dictis dimisit cum osculo pacis paterna fultum 

 benedictione." — Colgan, Vit. S. Macaerthenni (24 Mart.) Acta SS. p. 738. 



From this passage we learn one great cause of the sanctity in which this reli- 

 quary was held, and of the uses of the several recesses for reliques which it 

 presents. It also explains the historical relievo on the top — the figure of St. 

 Patrick presenting the Domnach to S. Mac-Carthen. 



4. In Jocelyn's Life of St. Patrick, (cap. 143,) we have also a notice to the 

 same effect, but in which the Domnach is called a Chrismatorium, and the relics 

 are not specified, — in all probability because they were not then appended to it. 



In these authorities there is evidently much appearance of the Monkish 



