102 



Proceeding !i of the Royal Irish Academy. 



predecessor, " as clouds take the shape of the momitains which they 

 hide and rest upon," so in following their guidance, where minute 

 detail is not involved, we probably take no very warped view of the 

 truth. 



The term " Thomond " is not used here in its almost prehistoric 

 meaning of northern Tipperary and north-eastern Limerick, nor in its 

 fullest meaning, when the might of the Dalcassians had added to these 

 the present county Clare, a fragment torn from Connaught. It is 

 used rather as it extended in the critical times of the Tudors, before 



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Map of Ancient Churches, County Clare. 



the vast revolution which so radically affected the topography of 

 Ireland. This arrangement is stereotyped on our maps by the present 

 county of Clare, extended to its natural south-eastern limits of the 

 Shannon by our including the small district given to the city of 

 Limerick. 



Speead 01' Christianiit in Thomond. 



St. Patrick, we are definitely told, never preached in the Clare por- 

 tion of Thomond, and the absence of his name from the ecclesiastical 

 legends and earlier churches bears out the statement. Even if his 

 alleged journey with Caeilte, in the " Colloquy of the Ancients,"^ was 



1 " Silva Gadelica," vol. ii., " Colloquy of the Ancients," p. 126. 



