480 



CUEYA DEL GATO. 



Within a few miles of the city of Ponda, by the lower road to 

 Gibraltar, in the beautiful Yal de Angostura, is a chasm in the moun- 

 tains which form its northern boundary, through which there rushes a 

 brawling stream to join the river below. Its sides are covered with a 

 luxurious brushwood, and the most gorgeous wild plants. 



Just below its opening there is a small cave, which is sometimes re- 

 sorted to by the shepherds of the district. This, probably, was the 

 abode of some of the wild tribes which peopled this country in prime- 

 val times. I exhibit a stone celt which was found there by a friend 

 of mine the same day that I visited it. 



LIU. — On an Agreement, in Irish, between Gerald, Ninth Earl 



OF KlLDARE, AND THE MaC EANNALLS J EXECUTED AT MAYNOOTH, NO- 

 VEMBER 5, 1530, AND SEALED WITH THE SEAL OF THE COLLEGE OF 



Maynooth. By C. "W. Russell, D.D. 



[Read May 24, 1869.] 



Among the grounds upon which the authenticity of a historical docu- 

 ment may be impeached, there is none so formidable as the suspicion 

 of an anachronism. Had the ancient and highly interesting in- 

 strument which I have the honour to submit this evening to the con- 

 sideration of the Academy chanced to remain unnoticed for four or 

 five centuries longer, it is far from improbable that its genuineness 

 might come to be called into question on the ground of a palpable misdate. 

 The College of Maynooth has occupied so large a share of public atten- 

 tion during the present century, and the date and circumstances of its 

 origin have been so frequently discussed, that few facts in the modern 

 history of our country are more firmly established and more unques- 

 tioningly accepted than that of its foundation by Mr. Pitt in 1795. So 

 entirely have the many controversies regarding Maynooth College, in and 

 out of Parliament, occupied the public mind with the existing institution, 

 as to shut out, not merely the memory, but even the idea of another ear- 

 lier foundation of the same name. And thus it may readily be believed 

 that a future antiquarian of, perhaps, the twenty-fourth or twenty-fifth 

 century, to whose judgment the alleged agreement between the Mac 

 Eannall* and the Earl of Kildare,in 1530, might be submitted, would, 

 on discovering that this document purported to be sealed with the seal 

 of the College of Maynooth, at once pronounce it to be an unskilful 

 forgery, that College not having been founded till nearly three hundred 

 years after the professed date of the agreement. 



* The Irish orthography of the name is Magradhnaill ; but I have thought it con- 

 venient, except in the Irish Deed and the translation of it, to follow the generally 

 received spelling — MacRannall. 



