The duties of llieir office, say Irish historians, were to trace 

 the origin of their ancestors, to pursue their foreign migrations, 

 to adjust and preserve their annals, and to keep an account of 

 their genealogies, alliances and wars.- The result of their in- 

 spiration must have flattered the credulity of the ages in which 

 they wrote ; as- they pretended to succeed, in tracing the lineal 

 descent from Milesius to Japhet. The feasibility of the perform- 

 ance is accounted for by arguments, sufficiently convincing to 

 imenlightened understandings ; but the absurd stories, with which 

 the history is interlarded, prove that the human intellect of those 

 days had not in this country emerged from the lowest scale of 

 knowledge. 



Ireland was anciently known to foreigners by various Greek 

 and Latin denominations, most of which are imitative of its ori- 

 ginal name Eire or Eifin. An Irishman was hence called Ei- 

 reanach, and, in allusion to his ancestors. Gall, in the plural 

 Gaill, which word, Dr. O'Brien says, was afterward corrupted 

 into Gaidhil, Gaedhil, Gaoidhiol. From this name the language 

 is called Gaoileag, which, according to the same authority, should 

 be spelled Galic or Gailic.^- 



Eirin is derived by Camden from iar the west ; a derivation 

 objected to by O'Flaherty, Mac Geoghegan, O'Brien, and O'Conor, 

 who are probably the best Roman Catholic writers. Mac Geoghe- 

 gan's objection is grounded upon its implied sense ; viz. the be- 

 ing west of itself,* and O'Brien rejects the definition because 

 that meaning is not implied.^ He also thinks it absurd to ap- 



2. La meme, p. 103. Antiq. Hib. Jac. Waraei, cap- 2. Druida; pond et baidi ab utra- 

 que natione, eximio bonore habiti.' Keating, &c. 



3. Dr. O'Brien's Irish English Dictionary; remarks on the letter A, p. 3, 

 4; P. 193. 



5. Vid. his Preface to the Dictionary. 



i 



