878 





879 





883 





888 



Mael JJrigto. f 



927 



Josepli. t 



936 



Mael Patraic. 



La\vi,()K — The Ancieid List oj the CoarLs dJ Patrick. 853 



T.isT ». List /3. 



Mael Coba. 

 Cathassacli. 

 Mael C()l)a. 

 ilael Brigte. 

 Josepli. 

 Mael TaLraic. 



It appears thai tor a cciitiu}' ami a hall' a determined efl'ort was made to 

 establish the right of the Claim Siiiaich to provide abbots for Armagh, and 

 that for nearly the whole of that time the claim was vigorously resisted. It 

 is obvious that the hereditary succession was not maintained in the family 

 of which Sinach was the ancestor while this struggle lasted. Jjist a is much 

 more favourable to that contention than List j3. But even in List a there 

 are six abbots who were not of Clann Sinaich. About three-quarters of 

 the abbots in List /3 were of other septs. And it must be remembered 

 that list \i is, on the whole, confirmed by so reputable an authority 

 as the Ulster annalist, and that it coincided in large measure with the 

 authoritative list in the diptychs. It has therefore a considerable claim to 

 be regarded as historical ; while List « may have been framed in the time of 

 the later abbots of the Clann Sinaich line, who would be anxious to push 

 their prerogatives as far into the past as possible. St. Bernard asserts that 

 the hereditary succession came into existence " by the devilish ambition of 

 certain powerfid persons. "^ We believe that the foregoing investigation 

 justifies the strength of his language. 



We are now in a position to discuss certain matters which were of neces- 

 sity postponed to this point in our inquiry. The first of them concerns the 

 notes in L. By wliat right do we assume that they belong to the original 

 List ? The answer to that question is to be found mainly in the note under 

 no. 36, to which frequent reference has been already made. Jt is clear that 

 it was written at a time when the recitation of the diptychs of the dead was 

 still customary at Armagh. That implies, as we shall sec in a moment, that 

 it is not later than the first quarter of the twelfth century. But we may go 

 further. The original writer of the note was aware that the List had its 

 origin in the diptychs. That is to say, he was acquainted with the methods 

 of the compiler. It is not a necessary corollary, but it is a probable one, that 

 the annotator and the compiler were the same person. But further, though 

 the notes in the other .m.ss. are scanty, they are, in a good many instances, 



' Vita S. MidacliUie, J 19. 



