447 
Monpay, January 121H, 1857. 
JAMES HENTHORN TODD, D. D. Presipen’, 
in the Chair. 
Joun Rosert Kinanan, M.B., was elected a Member of 
the Academy. 
The Secretary of the Council read the following recom- 
mendation of the Council :— 
«‘ That the Executive Committee for conducting the Ex- 
hibition of Art-'Treasures at Manchester be permitted to make 
a selection (subject to the approval of the Council) from the 
Celtic Antiquities in the Museum, provided they comply with 
the conditions which the Council shall determine.” 
A division having been called for, the President declared 
that the recommendation of the Council had been negatived. 
The Rev. William Reeves, D.D., read a paper on the early 
system of abbatial succession in the Irish monasteries. The 
cases which were chosen in illustration were the churches of 
Trim, Armagh, and Hy or Iona. Concerning the first, the 
Book of Armagh* contains, among some fragmentary charters 
of the See of Armagh, a most interesting record relative to 
the foundation and endowment of Trim. It gives a list of the 
first eight abbots of that church, all anterior to the earliest 
entry under that head in the Irish annals;{ and of them it 
observes: ‘* Hi omnes episcopi fuerunt et principes, venerantes 
sanctum Patricium et successores ejus.” It also gives a lineal 
pedigree of the family which sprung from the original grantor 
of the lands, out of which the ministers of the church were 
* Penes Scriptorem ; fol. 16 ab. 
+ The earliest entry concerning an abbot of Trim, in the Annals of Ulster, 
is 745, which the Four Masters transfer to their 74]. 
VOL. VI. 27 
