Mr. Petrie on the History and Antiquities of Tara Hill. 95 



monkish forgeries the authorities which state the death and burial of Sen- 

 Patrick at Glastonbury, and the Irish authorities to the same fact as forgeries 

 later and consequent on the former. 



But these authorities are not to be destroyed so easily, for they are supported 

 by evidences with which the Doctor was unacquainted, or which, at least, he 

 has kept out of sight. Thus, when he asserts that the monks of Glastonbury 

 forged the connexion of the Irish Apostle with Glastonbury out of an abbot 

 Patrick, who died there in the ninth century, or some other (unheard of) Patrick, 

 who died there in the seventh or eighth, he should have recollected that he had 

 himself stated that the memory of Patrick was venerated there as the patron 

 saint from the earliest times, as shewn by Ussher from the Charters of Baldred, 

 Ina, and Eldred ; and that the church of Glastonbury, when rebuilt by the 

 Saxons, was dedicated to the Blessed Virgin and St. Patrick. And again, when 

 he treats the scholiast of Fiech, who states the same fact as applicable to Sen- 

 Patrick, as of no authority, he should have known and acknowledged that 

 Colgan considered him an author of the seventh century, and that, at all events, 

 his scholia are preserved in the Liber Hymnorum, which cannot be later than 

 the ninth. But evidence to this fact is found in another work, the authority 

 of which the Doctor has himself maintained, and which indeed it is impossible 

 fairly to impugn, namely, the Feilire, or Festilogy of Aengus, written before the 

 close of the ninth century. A copy of this work, as old as the tenth century, 

 was In the possession of the late Edward O'Reilly, and. there is another pre- 

 served in the Leabhar Breac, which is supposed to be of the twelfth century. 

 The passage alluded to is given at the 24th of August, as follows : 



caspeich 8L015 sReNQun 



Flamma populi srenatii 



oca sceoiL uo cLouha 



Est fama quae audita est 



sen pauRQic CIN5 cauha 



Senex Patricius caput proelii 



coem aiT:e qr spocha.* 



Mitis praeceptor nostri patroni. 



* In explanation of Srenatii the Glossographist of Aengus says, " .i. i n-^loinepcip na n-^aeoel 

 1 Saxpanaib .1. in Britannia ;" that is, in Gloinestir of the Gael, in England, i. e. in Britannia 



