340 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



Armagh or Dublin, and was at the time in the library of James TJssher, 

 Primate of Ireland by the appointment of the King of England ; 

 the other to the Island of All Saints ; which copies were sent over to 

 " onr College," that is, of Louvain. Thus we learn that the copious 

 extracts which were described by Fleming as borrowed from the Codex 

 Ardmaclianus were derived from a parchment or vellum manuscript in 

 Archbishop Ussher's collection ; but twice he wavers between Armagh 

 and Dublin, as its source, though on every other occasion he designates 

 it as of Armagh. TJssher probably obtained it there, as he did the great 

 manuscript Antiphonaries which are still preserved in his library. 

 Besides this, he had a second manuscript collection of "Lives of Irish 

 Saints," which he occasionally refers to in the 17th chapter of his 

 "Antiquities of the British Churches," when treating of the early 

 Irish ecclesiastics. This still exists in his library, preserved in 

 Trinity College, Dublin, Cod. E. 3, 11, and it appears by some scrib- 

 bling on some of the pages to have previously belonged to John 

 Dillone, and it may have been procured by TJssher when he was 

 Bishop of Meath ; but there is not a trace of his handwriting through- 

 out the volume, which, in the order of its contents, agreed almost 

 exactly with his other manuscript, which is now preserved in 

 Archbishop Marsh's library, under the press mark V. 3, 1, 4. In the 

 Catalogue it is marked, and has often been quoted, as the Codex 

 Kilkenniensis* This name, however, is of comparatively modern 

 origin, having been suggested by the late George Downes, who, 

 finding in it the lives of several of the saints whose acts are printed 

 by Colgan, from a manuscript designated by that title, as having 

 belonged to the Franciscan Convent of Kilkenny (Conventus Fratrum 

 Minoruni Kill Cannise), concluded that this was the identical volume 

 so referred to, and accordingly reported on it as such. But on closer 

 examination it has been found that, though all the seven lives printed 

 by Colgan from the Codex Kilkenniensis are contained in this book, and 

 agree in the main, there are yet discrepancies sufficient to show that 

 Colgan' s matter was derived from a different exemplar. This name, 

 therefore, had better be abandoned, and its true name, Codex Arma- 

 ehanus, be reimposed upon it. 



Above twenty years ago I mentioned to the late Marquis of 

 Ormonde my objections to the title Codex Kilkenniensis, and he 

 accepted my statement in the preface to his Vita Sancti Kannechi, 

 p. vi. In 1857 I had occasion, in the preface to my edition of 

 Adamnan's Life of S. Columba, to speak of this manuscript, and 

 protested against the name Booh of Kilkenny, suggesting that " Codex 

 Armachanus was more likely to be its correct designation;" and I 

 adduced evidence to prove that the life of S. Columbaf in that 



* See Petrie's Tara,in Transacts R.I. A., vol. xviii. , p. 127; Petrie's Round Towers, 

 p. 169. 



t See pp. xxyL, 6, 9. 



