10 



that his Alio is the little river at present so called, flowing by Kanturk 

 into the Blackwater ; and these identifications have been copied and 

 repeated by writers of all kinds down to the present day, with a single 

 exception. The Eev. C. B. Gibson, in his " History of Cork" (1861), 

 asserts, but without giving any proof, that Spenser's Alio is the Mini- 

 ster Blackwater, and that his Auniduff is the Ulster Blackwater, flow- 

 ing by Charlemont into Lough JSeagh : that these identifications are 

 correct I hope to be able to show beyond any reasonable doubt. 



In the first place I must remark that, so far as I have been able to 

 discover, the Munster Blackwater was never called Auniduff or Avon- 

 duff (black river). Its Irish name is Abhainn-mor, or Avonmore (great 

 river) ; it is so called in all Irish authorities, and this is its universal 

 Irish name among the people of Minister at the present day. Black- 

 water appears to be a modern English name, though a sufficiently 

 appropriate one, as the river is very dark in the early part of its course, 

 partly from the bogs of Slievelougher, and partly from the coal district 

 through which it flows. 



Slievelougher, from which Spenser tells us the Alio flows, is the 

 ancient Sliabh Luachra (rushy mountain), a wild moorland district, 

 lying east of Castleisland in Kerry, and very much celebrated in ancient 

 Irish writings. The modern Alio, as Smith remarks in his " History of 

 Cork" (vol. i., p. 328), does not flow from or near Slievelougher; its 

 whole length is not more than seventeen miles, and in every part of its 

 course it is at least twelve miles distant from the nearest part of 

 Slievelougher. That Spenser, who lived so near these places, could 

 commit the gross mistake of making this Alio rise in Slievelougher, 

 requires a more than ordinary amount of credulity to believe. The 

 Blackwater, on the other hand, flows directly from Slievelougher ; it 

 rises about five miles JSF. IS". "W. from King Williamstown, flowing first 

 southwards, and, after passing through this very mountain district, it 

 turns east towards Mallow, so that Spenser must have been speaking 

 of the Blackwater when he described it most truly as "strong Alio 

 tombling from Slewlogher steep." 



But, to remove all doubt, Spenser himself in another place tells us 

 expressly the very river he means by the Alio. In " Colin Clouts 

 come home again" he relates how Old Father Mole did not wish his 

 daughter Mulla to wed the Bregoge, but 



" meaning her much better to preferre, 



Did thinke to match her with the neighbour flood, 

 Which Alio hight, Broadwater called farre ;" 



by which he means that the river which he called Alio was called 

 Broadwater by distant writers. Now, Broadwater is the name by 

 which the Blackwater was known by early English writers, and it is 

 nothing more than their translation of the Irish name Abhainn-mor. 

 For instance Boate : — "The chief rivers of Minister are Sure and 

 Broadwater The other [the Broadwater] passe th by Lismore" 



