7 



Limerick, Galway, and many other places have received their names. 

 The d at the end is a modern corruption in accordance with a phonetic 

 law that I examined in a former paper, by which d is often corruptly 

 added in modern names after n and r, and b after m. 



" Sad Trowis that once his people over-ran." This is the little 

 River Drowes> flowing from Lough Melvin, between the counties of Fer- 

 managh and Leitrim, into Donegal Bay. The Irish name is Drobhaois, 

 and it is a river very often mentioned in Irish history. Prom the most 

 ancient period it separated the province of Connaught from that of 

 Ulster, and it is still the boundary between them. The earliest division 

 of Ireland into five provinces was made by the Firbolgic colony, when 

 the five sons of Dela divided the country between them, and " Geanann 

 took the province of Connaught from Luimneach [Limerick] to Dro- 

 bhaois, and Rughruidhe took the province of Uladh from Drobhaois to 

 Droiched-atha [Drogheda]." (Keating, chap, ii.) 



The words "sad," and "that once his people over-ran," allude to 

 a well-known legend regarding Lough Melvin, from which the river 

 flows — namely, that at a very ancient period it suddenly overflowed 

 the land, and drowned the people. This legend is given by the Four 

 Masters in the following words : — " Anno Mundi 4694, Melghe Molbh- 

 thach, monarch of Ireland, was slain in the battle of Claire by Modh- 

 corb;" and they go on to say that "when his grave was digging, Loch 

 Melghe burst forth over the land in Cairbre, so that it was named 

 [Loch Melghe, now corrupted to Lough Melvin] from him." 



Spenser makes the three rivers, Barrow, Suir, and Nore, the offspring 

 of "the great gyant Blomius" and "the faire nimph Rheusa," which 

 is only a figurative way of saying that these rivers rise in Slieve Bloom, 

 and that they draw their supplies from the rain water falling on the 

 mountains; Rheusa being merely 'Veouca, the fern, participle of Te^, 

 to flow. 



I am persuaded that Spenser, in mentioning " the great gyant 

 Blomius," alludes to another very ancient Irish legend, namely, that 

 Slieve Bloom, or as it is written in Irish, Sliabh Bladhma [pron. blaw- 

 ma] received its name from Bladh [gen. Bladhma], the son of Breogan, 

 one of the chieftains of the Milesian expedition to Ireland. The legend- 

 ary personages connected with hills or other features are almost always 

 magnified into giants or supernatural beings by the imagination of the 

 peasantry; and they are believed to haunt those places as a kind of 

 guardian spirits ; as, for example, Finnvarra of Knockmaa near Tuam ; 

 Donn of Knockfierna in Limerick; Midir of Bri Leith, now Slieve 

 Golry, near Ardagh, county Longford, &c. It is highly probable that 

 this legend was preserved among the peasantry in Spenser's time ; that 

 he became acquainted with it, as he knew and recorded the legend of 

 Lough Melvin; and that "the great gyant Blomius " is the ancient 

 legendary hero Bladh [Blaw], the presiding spirit of Slieve Bloom. 



It is curious that Spenser personifies these rivers in the masculine 

 gender, calling them " three renowmed brethren," and further on in 



