316 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



unfavourable impression of O'Flanagan' s character ; and it is now 

 constantly assumed, that he himself fabricated the stanzas cited by him 

 as from "the Battle of Grabhra." 



In adopting these condemnatory opinions, it does not seem that 

 any consideration has been given to the very weak nature of pre- 

 sumptions arising on merely negative evidence. Before concluding 

 anything, on ground so liable to be disturbed, the laws of right 

 reasoning require that the alleged forgery should itself be examined, 

 with a view to see how far it supports, or fails to support, the case 

 in sustainment of which it is supposed to have been invented. This is 

 what I would beg leave to do, first, in the present communication. 



The theory, it will be remembered, is, that O'Flanagan, finding his 

 patron, Vallancey, intent on the discovery of eastern analogies, and, 

 inter alia, of Sun-worship among the ancient Irish, devised these 

 verses for the double purpose of identifying the Mount Callan Ogham 

 as the epitaph of Conan Maol, and of evidencing the ancient practice 

 of Sun-worship in the same locality. So far as verifying the tradi- 

 tionary remembrance of the name of Conan, it must be owned that the 

 verses are more apposite than the Ogham — for these at least contain 

 his name, totidem Uteris ; — but, on a closer scrutiny, it will be seen 

 that they exhibit the same incompatibility with the theory as the 

 Ogham, in not being accurately translated by their supposed author, 

 who (strange to say, if he were the fabricator) has failed to render, 

 and has even obscured, the meaning of some of the expressions most 

 relevant to the maintenance of his assumed imposture. The verses 

 are as follow. — (I extract from the Transactions of the Academy, 

 vol. i., Antiq., p. 4) : — 



" Ni raib an Laocli fraocMa Conan, an Gabhra 'san trean dail ; 

 Am Bealtaine an Bliadhain roimhe, aig Coine adhartha na Greine ; 

 Ro torchar an Cnradh nar tim, a Fiongail le Fianaibh Fin ! — 

 Eo cloidb a Feart tbiar bo thuaigh ; — a Cluitbe Caointe bo diol truaigh ! — 

 'Sta Ainiin Ogam air lie blaith, i sliabh comb dubb Callain." 



These verses O'Flanagan thus translates: — 



" Tbe fierce and mighty Conan was not in the desperate battle of Gabhra : for 

 in May, the preceding year, the dauntless hero was treacherously slain by the 

 Feni of Fin, at an assembly met to worship the sun : — His sepulchral monument 

 was raised on the North-west ! — His wailing dirge was sung ! — And his name is 

 inscribed in Ogham characters on a flat stone on the very black mountain of 

 Callan!" 



I say nothing of the pretensions of these verses to ancient, or even 

 mediaeval, authenticity. They appear to be as little characterised by 

 any genuine savour of antiquity as the rest of the conventional, and 

 often, indeed, vapid, compositions to which they claim to ally them- 

 selves. I am not myself sufficiently instructed to pronounce on a 

 question of style ; but, from the little I do know, I confess I would 

 be surprised if any noticeable difference in that respect could be pointed 

 out between the quasi Ossianic strains of the one set of compositions 

 and of the other. A fragment, it is true, of an old version of "The 

 Battle of Gabhra" is preserved in the Book of Leinster; but it has no 



