Armstrong and La.wi.ou — The Domnach Airgid. 117 



But lately a doubt has insinuated itself into my mind. It is supposable that 

 the manuscript, when a shrine was made for it in the eighth century, had 

 suffered considerable injury, and that its leaves were already frayed and 

 curled up. If so, measurements taken after the leaves were flattened out 

 woidd not demonstrate that it was not the tenant for whose reception the 

 box of yew was intended. And the very fact that a mutilated and unsightly 

 Gospel book was deemed worthy of an elaborately ornamented cumdach would 

 indicate a tradition that it had belonged, if not to St. Patrick, at least to some 

 renowned saint. 



With this suspicion forcing itself upon me I was anxious that fresh 

 evidence should be found. And a happy accident soon brought it into my 

 hands. Last June I undertook to edit for the Louth Archaeological Society 

 the extant fragments of a Register of Clogher which had been inspected by 

 Archbishop Ussher in his early manhood, and about the same time by George 

 Montgomery, Bishop of Clogher, but which has long since disappeared. The 

 Register was compiled as late as 1525 ; but a study of the extracts from it 

 which still exist convinced me that parts of it were based on— in one 

 instance copied from — a Register of Matthew Mac Cathasaigh, who was 

 Bishop of Clogher for some years before and after 1300. Among the passages 

 derived from this source is one which gives strong corroboration to the con- 

 clusions which Dr. Bernard readied in his paper on the Domnach Airgid. 1 



1 For the statements in this paragraph and those that follow about the Clogher Register, 

 see my edition of the fragments in the Louth Archaeological Journal, vol. iv, No. 3. The 

 passage summarized in the next paragraph is Fragment iii, and runs thus : — 



Memorandum quod Dominus Matheus episcopus Clochorensis, iuit ad ecclesiam beati 

 Constantis de Eoynys ad facieudam translacionem beati Constantis praespiteri et etiam 

 beati fergiuminth episcopi de Cutmaine [I. Culmaine] successoris beati Aedhami Diaconi et 

 invento corpore beati Constantis divisit relliquias eius in tres partes et relicts tertia parte 

 in ecclesia de Eoynys duas secum duxit ad ecclesiam Clochorensem quarum vnam concessit 

 ecclesiae beati Vumci decuirjnecli et fecit illam partem recondi in quodam scriniolo in 

 quo similiter possuit episcopus de relliquiis supradicti fergiuminth episcopi Aliam autem 

 partem de reliquiis Constantis fecit recondi in scrinio nragno beati Makartini in quadam 

 cista parua siue pixide lignea. Item reliquias beati fergumiutht possuit in quodam linteo 

 et fecit eas recondi in eodem scrinio. Item beatus Constans secum duxit de Britanueaf 

 tres viros praelatae tidei ad serviendum sibi et deo in monasterio suo de Eoynys quorum 

 corpora sepulta sunt in inferior) parte Cymiterii de Eoynys et episcopus fecit vnum de 

 ipsis transferri cuius relliquias possuit episcopus in quodam scrinio, quod dicitui Membra 

 a Membrana dictum quae ibidem continebatur quia cum beatus Tigernacus hospitaretur 

 apud lysdoniam vbi tunc conventus monialium fuerat sanctarum qui conventus vnam 

 habens oveni cuius lana induebantur monialcs fecit iutertici illam ovem beato Tygernaco 

 pro carnibus et hoc ignorante sancto Tygernaco : vnde beatus Tigernacus rogauit 

 Dominum suum Jesum Christum vt pellis ilia afl'eret lanani ad vsum monialium sicut antea 

 dabat, quando fuit in corpore ovis, Et sic conventus habebat lanani de pelle pet plures 

 anuos sicut viuente oue ad supplicationem beati Tygernaci. Postea vero cum pellis ilia 

 ad solem fuisset possita causa earn siccandi coruus quidam pellem in rostro recipiens earn 



