398 
No mention of this Gillaruadan O’Macan occurs in the 
Annals. He was probably comharb or successor of St. 
Ruadhan of Lorrha, in Lower Ormond, the principal church 
of O’Kennedy’s country. 
Thus it appears that there is a difference of date of about 
300 years between the top and bottom of this most interest- 
ing box; the bottom having been made before the year 1052, 
and the top shortly before 1381. 
The President then proceeded to give a description of the 
MS. contained in this box, which contains a copy of the Gos- 
pel of St. John, in a handwriting of the seventh century, the ~ 
writer of which gives his name in Ogham characters, at the 
end of the Gospel, in these words :— 
“Deo gratias ago, Amen. Fint, Amen. Rogo quicun- 
que hune librum legeris, ut memineris mei peccatoris scripto- 
ris, .1. seat peregrinus. Amen.” 
The Ogham characters are interpreted Sonip,—a name 
which is certainly not Irish; and as the writer styles himself 
peregrinus, it is probable that he may have been one of those 
foreign students who at that time flocked to Ireland in great 
numbers for ecclesiastical education. 
The MS. also contains a Missal, of great antiquity, the 
contents of which the President described in detail, showing 
that the more ancient portion of it may probably be as old as 
the fifth or beginning of the sixth century, but that it had re- 
ceived mutilation, by additions and alterations made about 
the ninth or tenth century, in order to bring the more ancient 
Ordo into conformity with the ritual of that period. 
