39 
is very likely, that the use of this iron covering for sacred fires 
might have been borrowed from the Druids, as well as the use of 
their temples, &c. and this is rendered the more probable from 
the circumstance of the druidical fire itself having been after- 
wards continued by the Christians, at least at Kildare. 
The word Barnaan, as it is here applied, appears to be derived 
from the Irish bap, a top, or head of a thing; and an, fire, * that is 
bap-na-ajn, the head or cover of the fire. This derivation seems to 
me to add considerable support to the foregoing conjecture respect- 
ing the original use of the Barnaan Cuilawn; and would, if there 
existed any tradition of a holy fire having been kept up in that 
parish, like that of Saint Bridget at Kildare, be conclusive upon 
the subject. 
With regard to the remaining part of its appellation, viz. 
Cuilawn, (as it pronounced,) that I at first took to be a corrup- 
tion of the Irish word Cujle«n, (a holly) which epithet I then sup- 
posed might have been bestowed upon the Barnaan in after times, 
from the circumstance of its having been found in a tree. The 
inhabitants of the parish of Glankeen, however, attributed the 
additional epithet, Cuilawn, to a Saint of that name, who they sup- 
pose made it with his own hands.+ From him also, they say, (and 
probably correctly) that Kill-Cuilawn, and the well which formerly 
sprung there, took an appellation. After much search made for 
any Irish Saint of that or a similar name, I have succeeded in dis 
covering, that Culanus (in Irish called Cuilen or Cualen)t is the 
name of the Saint who built the church in the parish of Glankeen, 
where this curiosity was found. This proves how correct the com- 
* an, fire, —O’Reilly’s Dic. 
+ The other name by which it is known, i. e. Obajp na. Z-naom, favours this opinion. 
$ Colgan. Act. SS. Hiber. 369. 
