321 



see was such a work as we might expect to find undertaken 

 during his primacy : and of the second Ferdomnach we are 

 informed, not only that he was a scribe of Armagh in Tor- 

 bach's time, but that he was pcpibnio cojaiDe, a choice scribe, 

 a fit person to be intrusted with so important a work. Cer- 

 tainly the penmanship of the Book of Armagh is of the most 

 consummate excellence. The whole of the writing is remark- 

 able for its distinctness and uniformity. All the letters are 

 elegantly shaped, and many of the initials are executed with 

 great artistic skill. The last verses of St. John's Gospel, fol. 

 103 a, may be especially referred to, as exhibiting a specimen 

 of penmanship which no scrivener of the present day could 

 attempt to rival. 



It is also worthy of notice, that, about the time of Tor- 

 bach's primacy, the inroads of the Danes in the north of Ire- 

 land, and the adjoining islands, were becoming so frequent 

 and serious, that the ecclesiastics of Armagh might well have 

 been anxious to take measures for the preservation of their 

 records. In the year 802 the Scandinavian pirates plundered 

 the monastery of Hy, on which occasion many of the inmates, 

 both laymen and monks, perished. They again attacked it 

 in 806, and put to death no less than sixty-eight of the monks. 

 In 807 they effected a landing on the Irish coast, and, pene- 

 trating as far as Roscommon, destroyed it, and laid waste the 

 surrounding country. But it was not till 831 that they entered 

 Armagh. In that year, as we learn from the Annals of the 

 Four Masters, they plundered it three times in the course of 

 one month. It had never before been taken possession of by 

 foreigners. 



Mr. Graves stated that, on mentioning to his friend Mr. 

 Petrie the fact of his having ascertained the name of the scribe 

 of the Book of Armagh to be Ferdomnach, Mr. Petrie at once 

 informed him, that he had, many years ago, made a drawing 

 of a tombstone at Clonmacnoise, on which that name ap- 



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