Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 315 



LI. Ox THE ALLEGED LlTEEAEY FoEGERY EESPECTING SuN-WOESHIE ON 



Mount- C allax. By Saxuel Feegttsox, LL.D., Q.C., V.P. 



[Read November 8, 1875.] 



In two papers which I read before the Academy {supra, pp. 160 

 and 265), I stated what appeared to me legitimate grounds for con- 

 cluding, first, that the Mount Callan inscription is not, as has usually 

 been supposed, on the authority of O'Donovan andO'Curry, a lapidary 

 forgery ; and, secondly, that the allusion to Sun-worship on Mount 

 Callan, in the supposed spurious verses from the poem called " The 

 Battle of Gabhra," might be referred with more probability to the 

 fact that periodic assemblies, accompanied by ceremonials practised at a 

 structure called Altoir na greinc, used to take place at that spot, than 

 to any misapplication of ideas suggested by the local nomenclature. 



A third question, however, I did not enter on, viz., if the stanzas 

 be spurious, no matter how suggested — whether by misapprehension 

 of the name of the adjoining Loch Booley-na-greine, or by reference 

 to the neighbouring Altoir na greine — can Theophilus O'Flanagan be 

 justly chargeable with their fabrication? It was he who first 

 published them to the world. If his authority had been challenged 

 in his life-time, and he had failed to produce or to account for it, it 

 would have been the duty of the Academy to consider him the author, 

 and to caution the world of learning against the imposture of which 

 its Transactions would, in that case, have been made the vehicle. But 

 it is only since O'Flanagan's death that any such charge appears to 

 have been put forward ; and that fact, although the accusers were 

 persons of great authority, necessarily diminishes the weight, and 

 invites to a careful scrutiny of the grounds, of their judgment. 



The ground taken by O'Donovan is very wide, implying a general 

 distrust of everything proceeding from O'Flanagan, whom he charges 

 directly with this forgery (Ir. Gram., Introd., xlvii.) I know no 

 person who has been the object of so much detraction among Irish 

 writers and critics as this unfortunate scholar ; and, apart from the 

 charge now about to be examined, and subject to the result of such 

 investigation, I must confess myself unable to learn a single act of his 

 that ought, morally, to discredit his memory. 0' Curry, it will be 

 remembered, is more specific, grounding his charge on a close exam- 

 ination made by himself of all the copies of the poem accessible to 

 him of an earlier date than 1760, from which he states these stanzas 

 are invariably absent, although found in several modern copies. 

 (H. & S. MSS. Cat., vol. ii., p. 415, cited supra, p. 161). 



Professor O'Looney (who, however, is not to be counted among 

 any one's accusers) offers the same testimony : " I do not know of 

 any copy of the poem on the Battle of Gabhra containing the stanza 

 attributed by O'Curry to O'Flanagan that I could regard as genuine." 



These statements, and the slight nature of the references to Sun- 

 worship in the unimpeached Irish remains, hare produced a generally 



SER. II., VOL. I., rOL. LIT. & AXTIQ. 2 Y 



