MacaListkR — Temair Breg : Remains and Traditions of Turn. 369 



They are the true Acta Sanctorum Hibemiae, and we can only regret that 

 there are so few of them. Take, by way of contrast, a single short example 

 of hagiographical imagination. We read in the Life of St. Ciaran of Clon- 

 macnois that when he was setting up one of the posts of his church he called 

 out " This in the eye of Tren "-—a person who had been hostile to the saint — 

 whereupon, we are told, Tren's one eye burst in his head. 1 The tale anni.-i-. 

 a mild interest as an illustration of the belief in sympathetic magic; but the 

 blockheads who concocted, the dullards who, unmoved with indignation, 

 listened to, a libel so atrocious on one of the most Christ-like of Christ's 

 followers in Ireland, would have been quite incapable of the flight of dramatic 

 fancy with which Professor Bury's theory credits them. 



But apart from this argument, which is purely psychological and sub- 

 jective, there is a more serious objection to Professor Bury's criticism. The 

 mistake of supposing that the fire lit by the king was the fire of Beltene was 

 exposed long ago by O'Donovan.' 3 In fact, there is no evidence that the fire 

 of Beltene was ever lit at Temair at all. The Lismore Life of St. Patrick 

 asserts that the king was celebrating his own birthday,' 1 and the statement 

 has been copied more than once from O'Donovan's quotation. There is little 

 or no evidence of the celebration of birthdays as a practice in pre-Christian 

 Ireland 4 ; but the hagiographer spoke more truly than he knew. 



Easter in a.d. 433, the year of St. Patrick's coming to Temair, fell upon 

 26 March. As the Paschal Fire was lit on Easter Eve, the festival which the 

 saint violated was held on 25 March. This is the very date on which, in 

 many places, the resurrection of the deity of vegetation was celebrated. For 

 the facts I may refer the reader to Frazer's Adonis, At/is, Osiris, i, 306. The 

 death and resurrection of Attis were celebrated in Rome on the 25th day of 

 March. The date corresponds to the 9th of Elaphebolion, the dale of the 

 City Dionysia of Attica. 6 The happy chance of the incidence of Easter in 

 the year after St. Patrick's landing is what apologists used to call an 

 "undesigned coincidence," that goes far to prove (a) the recurrence ol a 

 spring festival at Temair on 25 March, and (&) the substantial historioity ol 

 the story of St. Patrick's proceedings. It further explains how the king 

 was said to have been celebrating his "birthday." It need not have been 

 the birthday of the man called Loeguire mac Ncill ; but it was the natal 



1 Lismore Lives, line 4399. 

 - Lebor na ccert, introduction, p. 50. 

 3 Ed. Stokes, line 268. 



* Though some sort of connexion seems to have been recognized between persons boil] 

 on the same day of the year : see Todd Lett , xiv. 16. 

 •"' Cook, Zeus, i, [>]>. 680 ff. 



50»J 



