500 Proceedings of the Eoyal Irish Academy. 



of the MS. agrees with this date. Its contents are to some extent dis- 

 appointing : the author confesses his reliance on Ware for his facts, and 

 when that authority fails him he is at sea. Still, he preserves some local 

 details of interest. I am not aware of any other record of a Eound Tower 

 having existed at Louth in the seventeenth century.^ The descriptions of 

 this town, as well as of Dundalk and Carlingford, though brief, are vivid. 

 The curious mistake about Sraarmor castle, which the author thought at first 

 was an abbey, and its clumsy correction in the MS., suggest that the document 

 was merely a draft meant for a more finished report : the whole has an 

 air of disorder, as though Downing had put down things as tliey came into 

 his head, intending later to arrange them systematically. The tradition 

 recorded that Monasterboice had first been a bishopric and afterwards a 

 nunnery shows how completely the memory of its true history had been 

 lost. 



Mr. Charles McNeill has given me useful help in the decipherment of 

 some obscurely written words. 



In conclusion, I have to say that this document, even though only 

 indirectly connected with the Down Survey, is of a public nature ; and as I 

 hold very strong %dews against public documents, and important antiquities 

 or works of art, remaining in private hands, where they are exposed to the 

 risk of all sorts of domestic accidents, and co ultimate loss in the sale-room, I 

 hereby beg to present it to the Academy. 



\lf The Covmtie of Lcwth auncientUe called Uriell or Eorgall takeing 

 the name of a Countie from the Towne of Lowth called Luduneusis als 

 Lugudunensis als Louthensis when it was a Bishopricke to whose Dicecesse 

 belonged all this Countie & was united to' the Dicecesse of Clogher & soe 

 continued till the time of Dauid 6 Bragan B'' of Clogher who lined in 

 King Henry the third reigne & was then united to the See Archiepiscopall 

 of Ardmagh here is at Louth a round steeple 



MoTiastery of Louth^ Here . [sic] alsoe the monostery of Lor;th or 



Lughffi built by S' Mochseos the first B"" there in the time of S' Patricke living 

 but how longe it continued is uncertaine. But Donatus o Carroll or rather 



' Petrie (EccL. Arch., p. 391) quotes from the Annals of Clonmacnois a record of the 

 fall of the steeple of Louth in a.d. 981 : it would thus appear to have been restored. 

 - These numbers in square brackets denote the pagination of the MS. 

 ^ The words, printed in italics in this transcript, are written in the margin of the MS. 



