8 



the same passage "three faire sons; " by early English writers they 

 are commonly called "The three sisters," as by Giraldus Cambrensis, 

 Camden and others. 



"The wide embayed Maire" is the Kenmare river and bay. This 

 bay was often called Maire by writers of* that early period. In JSorden's 

 map it is written "Flu. Maire; " and Boate describes it as a "huge 

 bay called Maire" ("Nat. Hist, of Ireland," p. 11, Ed. 1726). This 

 name was, I believe, an invention of these writers themselves, and 

 they took it from Kenmare, by a kind of reverse process, as if Kenmare 

 signified "The head of Maire." The original name as nsed in Irish 

 authorities is Ceann-mara ; and it was in the first instance applied to 

 the highest point to which the tide ascended in the river Boughty, the 

 name signifying " head or highest point of the sea*" 



"The balefull Oure late stained with English blood." I am not 

 aware that any one has attempted to identify this. At first glance the 

 Kore in Kilkenny would suggest itself, as this river was at that period 

 often called the Oure ; but this supposition is out of the question, as, 

 besides other reasons, the JSore has been already enumerated. I think 

 I shall be able to show that the " balefull Oure " is the Avonbeg, 

 which flows through Glenmalure in Wicklow, and joins the Avonmore 

 at the Meeting of the Waters, the two forming the Avoca. "Whether 

 Spenser meant to apply the name Oure to the whole river as far as 

 Arklow, or only to the Avonbeg, one of its branches, I shall leave an 

 open question, but I think the former probable. 



The words "late stained with English blood" obviously refer to 

 some battle in which the English were defeated and suffered loss, and 

 which was fought a short time before Spenser wrote the fourth Book 

 of " The Faerie Queene," in which this passage occurs. The first 

 three Books of " The Faerie Queene" were published in 1590, and it 

 is an ascertained fact that the remaining three were finished before 

 1594. The only battles of any consequence in which the English 

 were defeated, that could be called "late" at this period, were the three 

 following : — A trifling action fought at Tulsk in Bosconimon in 1593, 

 in which an English officer, Sir William Clifford, was slain ; a battle 

 fought at Gort-na-tiobrad in the south of the county Limerick in 1579, 

 in which fell three hundred English soldiers and three officers ; and a 

 third, the most serious of the three, fought in Glenmalure in 1580. It 

 will not be necessary to examine the two former ; this last is the only 

 battle that will answer Spenser's description in every particular. The 

 newly appointed Deputy, Lord Grey, advancing rashly against the 

 Wicklow clans, suffered a disastrous defeat on the 25th August of that 

 year, on the banks of the little river Avonbeg, flowing through this 

 glen, in which four English officers, Colonels Moor, Cosby, Audley, 

 and Sir Peter Carew, with a great number of men — eight hundred, 

 according to some authorities — were slain. So far it exactly bears out 

 Spenser's words "late stained with English blood." It must be ob- 

 served, too, that Spenser was himself in an indirect way closely con- 



