14 The Kev. J. H. Todd on an Ancient Irish Missal. 



of them he has omitted altogether, being in all probability unable to read tlie 



name plib, in the first fragment. He renders the second inscription thus: — 



" A JOINT Offering was this Jewel, and to praise worthy 



LEARNED J^ DoNNALD O'TOLARI ADORNED ME." 



This does not seem very intelligible. The mark before the name of Domh- 

 nall O'Tolari might have shown him that a new subject was there commenced ; 

 but the absence of the initial c in the word cumDaigeo caused him to miss the 

 meaning of the Avhole. The interpretation I have given is undoubtedly the 

 true one ; for Philip O'Kennedy, and Aine his wife, are historical personages, 

 whose decease is thus recorded by the Four Masters, at the year 1381: — 



Pilib Ua CinnciDig cijeapTia Upmuiiian, i Philip O'Kennedy, Lord of Ormond, and 



1 Q bean Qine ingeaTi meic conmapa bo his wife Aine, daughter of Mac Namara, 



6cc. 1 died. 



Here, then, we have the date of the second covering or " decorating" of 

 this box, just three hundred years later than the former cover, as indeed the 

 characters in which the inscriptions now before us are engraved plainly indi- 

 cate. It was " decorated" by Domhnall O'Tolari (who was probably guilty of 

 the barbarous mutilation of the ancient inscriptions) during the lifetime of 

 Philip O'Kennedy and his wife, Aine Ny Mac Namara, in the middle of the four- 

 teenth century. Of this artist nothing is known. 



The words, " Domhnall O'Tolari decorated me," represent the box as 

 addressing the reader, according to the usual style of such inscriptions. The 

 name O'Tolari, however, does not occur in our records. Dr. O'Conoe, in the 

 lower margin of his engraving, interprets it OTolar, omitting the final i; but 

 this is also a name which is not known to us, and I am, therefore, inclined to 

 think that the final i in the inscription, as Dr. O'Conor's engraving represents 

 it, ought to be c or g, and that the name is O'Tolarc, or O'Tolarg. Neverthe- 

 less, the drawing that I made of this inscription when I had it before me, gives 

 the word beyond all doubt Uolaju ; so that the mistake, if it be one, was a mis- 

 take of the original engraver. 



The third inscription on the lower plate is unintelligible, as the greater part 

 of it has been lost ; and what adds to the difficulty is, that it contains a character, 



