166 



1 . A list of the Saints of Ireland, according to their eccle- 

 siastical dignity ; of whom the author enumerates 345 bishops, 

 299 priests and abbots, and 78 deacons. 



2. A list of Saints who had the same name ; which is di- 

 vided into two books, one containing the homonomous male 

 Saints, the other female Saints. 



3. A list of the Saints according to their parentage ; that 

 is to say, Saints who were the sons of the same father ; Saints 

 who were the only sons of their fathers ; and female Saints, 

 classified in the same way. 



4. A book on the mothers of the Saints, in which the ma- 

 ternal genealogy of about 210 Saints, male and female, is pre- 

 served. 



5. The Book of Litanies, addressed to the Saints. 

 Colgan gives to these five tracts the collective title of 



Psaltar na Rann, on the authority of an ancient MS., in which 

 a copy of the treatise on homonymous Saints is thus entitled : 

 Homonymi Hibernice Sancti, ex Saltuir na rann, quod compo- 

 suit JEngussius Keledeus. 



But the work called Psaltar na Rann, preserved in the 

 Bodleian Library, is of a totally different character ; it is in 

 fact an abridgment of the history of the Old Testament in 

 Irish verse, consisting of a number of ranns or short poems, 

 each poem relating to some remarkable event or period of 

 sacred history. It is well described by Colgan in the follow- 

 ing words (Acta SS. p. 582) : « Praeter jam memorata scrip- 

 sit hie vir devotissimus metrico et eleganti stylo hystoriam 

 Veteris Testamenti : quam omnia Dei opera in Creatoris laudem 

 finaliter referendo, mentemque legentis et recitantis in ejus 

 laudem, et amorem incendendo, ita in formam orationis effor- 

 mavit, et in partes distribuit, ut aptissime in utroque sensu 

 Saltuir na rann, i. e., Psalterium metricum, velPsalterium mul- 

 tipartitum, vocari posset ; uti et de facto in alterutro vel utro- 

 que sensu nuncupari et intitulari consuevit." It does not 

 appear that Colgan had ever seen this Avork, and as many 



