344 



of men who erected it, or the date of its erection, notwithstanding the 

 theory of its Saxon origin, which has lately occupied much attention, 

 the people of Great Britain " know as much," remarks a recent writer, 

 "as they do of the solid framework of the globe itself." And yet 

 English history has had the benefit of such elucidation as Csesar and 

 Tacitus were able to afford. The works of their older historians — 

 Gildas, Bede, and Nennius — also remain to the English, whilst many 

 of our most ancient books of history are irretrievably lost. (See 

 O'Curry's " Lectures," p. 20, for a formidable list of the Irish MS S. 

 which have disappeared.) 



The oldest written reference to the Curragh of Xildare that I have 

 been able to find is a very brief one, contained in an ancient MS. 

 called the " Liber Hymnorum," preserved in the Library of Trinity Col- 

 lege, Dublin, and which is believed to have been transcribed in the 

 tenth century, from a much older volume. It occurs in the celebrated 

 Hymn in praise of St. Brigid, which professes to have been composed 

 by St. Brogan Claen, from a prose narrative given to him by his 

 master, St. Ultan, of Ardbraccan, in Meath. The latter died in the year 

 A. D. 656, at a very great age ; and it may therefore be safely assumed 

 that St. Brogan's Hymn was composed not long after the year 600. jit has 

 been published by Colgan (" Trias Thaumaturga,") and contains internal 

 evidence, if other testimony was wanting, of its antiquity. The "Mar- 

 tyrology of Donegal," in noticing the festival of St. Ultan, at September 

 4, states, " It was he that collected the miracles of St. Brigid into one 

 book, and gave them to Brogan Claen, his disciple, and commanded 

 him to turn them into verse ; so that it was the latter that composed [the 

 hymn], as it is found in the ' Book of Hymns.' " The reference to the 

 Curragh is contained in the line " In Caillech reidhed Currech" i.e., 

 " the nun who races over the Currech (or Curragh)." The scholiast, in a 

 contemporary gloss on the word " Currech," says, 11 Currech, a cursu 

 equorum dic'tus est." Dr. Todd, who has quoted this gloss in his edi- 

 tion of the "Book of Hymns" (p. 67), remarks that this is "a curious 

 proof of the antiquity of its use as a race-course " to which," he 

 adds, " perhaps some allusion may be intended in the description of 

 St. Brigid as ' the nun who drives over the Currech." ' If the word 

 reidhed had been translated "races," instead of " drives," Dr. Todd's 

 suggestion would doubtless have been advanced with more confidence. 



The next reference to the Curragh, in the order of date, is contained 

 in the ancient philological tract called "Cormac's Glossary" (in Irish, 

 "Sanasan Chormaic"), the authorship of which is ascribed to Cormac 

 Mac Ouillenan, Bishop and King of Cashel, who was slain in the battle 

 of Ballaghmoon, in the south of the county of Kildare, A. D. 908. This 

 work, which is undoubtedly one of the most genuine fragments of 

 ancient Irish literature that has descended to our times, has been 

 edited by Mr. "Whitley Stokes, from a MS. of the fourteenth century, 

 in the collection of the Royal Irish Academy ; but a fragment of it is 

 preserved in the " Book of Leinster," a MS. in Trinity College, written 

 about the year 1150. There is also a portion of this tract in a MS. in 



