319 



After the latter passage comes a Collect appropriate to the 

 Festival of St. Matthew, and then, at the bottom of the page, 

 is the erasure. 



By the use of a weak solution of gallic acid in spirits of 

 wine, Mr. Graves revived the traces of the original writing a 

 good deal ; and, aided by a magnifying glass, he succeeded, 

 at the expense of much time and labour, in deciphering the 

 greater part of the erased writing. The following fac simile 

 exhibits as much as can be read with any certainty : 



P'Kii-cKpnTciT — 



Now, as the Heres Patricii undoubtedly meant the succes- 

 sor of St. Patrick in the see of Armagh, we at once gain this 

 additional and positive information, that the scribe who wrote 

 the book was contemporary with some Archbishop of Armagh 

 whose name ended with ach : and this cannot be said of the 

 earlier Ferdomnach, who died A. D. 727. It appears, from a 

 passage in fol. 18, b, that Flann Febla had attained the pri- 

 macy before this book was written, and he was succeeded by 

 Suibne, who outlived this Ferdomnach. Nay, more, if we 

 may trust the list of the Archbishops of Armagh contained in 

 the Leahhar Breac, fol. 99, b, or that given by Colgan from 

 the Psalter of Cashel, there had been no Archbishop of Ar- 

 magh, whose name terminated thus, for more than a hundred 

 years previous to the death of the first Ferdomnach. On the 

 other hand, we know that, in the time of the second Ferdom- 

 nach, there were three Archbishops of Armagh whose names- 

 ended in ach, Foendelach, Connmach, and Torbach. But fur- 

 ther, enough remains of the letter preceding the final ach to 

 indicate that it was a b, certainly enough to show that it could 

 not have been either an I or an m. Moreover, in the space 



