Oghams extend lower down the stone than does the inscription; so that when this monument was placed upright in the ground, over the tomb of the deceased personage, some of the Oghams were most probably concealed by the earth.

"The way in which the inscription, in this case, is reproduced by the Oghams, makes this stone of the same value as those commemorating SAGRANVS and TRENACATVS,' with which the Association is already well acquainted.

"We now come to the question as to who CVNOCENNVS may have been: but here we have nothing to fall back upon except the dim traditions connected with the Welsh saints of the period from which this inscription probably dates. The occurrence of the cross, perhaps, indicates that he was an ecclesiastic; and, if so, connected with the church. He may have been its founder, or the first holy man who built an oratory here in what was then part of the great forest of Brecon. His own name was the same as that of his father; and he may have been related to CYNOG, who is said to have met with his death at MERTHYR CYNOG, a few miles off; and whose name, in characters of the same date as this, is commemorated on a stone unfortunately built during the late restoration, with the name inwards, into the arch between the nave and tower of the church at Llandefaelog Fach."

Mr. Graves said he hoped, on a future occasion, to bring under notice a very interesting Ogham monument lately discovered in Devonshire, the country of another branch of the Celtic family. Cornwall and Devon-the country of the Damnonii-as well as Scotland, owed their conversion to Christianity chiefly to the zeal of Irish missionaries. The early Welsh Church was intimately connected with that of Ireland; and many early Irish saints were schooled in Wales. It was his opinion that this extension of Ogham writing to Britain, and the fact that it was there found to be coincident only with the area of early Celtic missionary exertion, must have a bearing, not be slighted or put aside, on the question as to whether the branches of the Arrian race which formed the earliest settlements in these islands were acquainted with this mode of writing in Pagan times. If the Pagan Celts of Ireland used Ogham writing, there is no reason why their brethren of England should be ignorant of it; and that monuments inscribed therewith should be confined to Ireland, Wales, the south-west of England, and that part of Scotland colonized from Ireland.

The following papers were then submitted to the meeting:

1 See for engravings of these stones the "Journal of the Kilkenny and South

East of Ireland Archæological Society," vol. iii., new series, pp. 233, 302.—EĎ.

THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF FLORENCE MAC CARTHY.

BY DANIEL MAC CARTHY (GLAS), esq.

(Continued from Vol. III., New Series, page 295.)

THE tidings of Florence Mac Carthy's certain return to Ireland, which Donel-na-Pipy had brought with him from the court, and communicated to the Bishop of Cork, sufficed to occasion absolute consternation amongst a large community of undertakers in Munster. Roused by the shrill alarum from the episcopal trumpet, his old enemies, headed by the fiercest of them all, David Barry, the Lord Viscount Buttevant, rushed with renewed fury upon their foe; the first shaft, winged more directly, and with most of malice, at the heart of the common enemy, was shot from the bow of Barry. Florence appears, through life, to have been able to keep his personal dislikes in a wise subordination to his political requirements: in all cases except the single one of this Lord Buttevant. His enemies were countless! for they included every man who had a chance of deriving benefit from his ruin, every man injured by a Mac Carthy in Munster, every man who lived by inventing or discovering anything that would prove him to be dangerous, or disaffected, Spanish in heart, or popular in Desmond, every man who hated his religion, or coveted his possessions. Donell, his wife's base brother, Mac Carthy Reagh his cousin, Browne, with his convulsive clutch upon Molahuff, and David Barry, were the great captains in this army of evil wishers. Towards none of them, save Barry, does he appear to have entertained any rancour which could not be put aside when occasion required. His contention with the Brownes we shall see conducted with temper and decorum; of Donell he speaks invariably rather with contempt than with acrimony; and with his cousin of Carbery we shall see him before long holding confidential counsel" in the bay window of Kilbrittain Castle" his birth-place; but Barry was the solitary object of his especial detestation ! and in his instance alone did he permit himself to use language unbecoming his own high breeding, and the dignity of the Privy Council to whom his letters were addressed. What had been the original cause of this rancourous feud we know not for certain; it had, in all probability, arisen out of the Desmond rebellion, in which Florence and his father, and Barry and his father had taken opposite sides. Whatever may have been the cause, the quarrel itself was longlasting, and bitter. To Florence's secret handling of the bands of desperadoes who found asylum in the Earl's country, Barry attributed the frequent incursions of those robbers upon his lands; whilst to Barry's "inventions and false suggestions to Sir Thomas

Norreys," at the time of his marriage, his adversary ascribed his imprisonment. The rumour of Florence's return set half the pens of Munster into motion; whilst Browne hastened to kindle alarm in the mind of Sir Edward Denny, the old enemy of Herbert, an undertaker like himself-Barry with similar purpose bestowed upon the Lord Chief Justice, Sir John Popham, a spirited chapter of the biography of Donell, which must have forcibly reminded that eminent judge of the adventures, and the companions of his own youth. Popham needed little solicitation to induce him to exert any influence he might possess to injure Florence. He, and his son-inlaw Rogers, as the reader will perceive presently, had been disappointed in their endeavours to place themselves as undertakers in Carbery; we shall at a later period see them making a fresh and equally unsuccessful attempt upon Florence's patrimonial estates.

"1589. March 4.

"John Popham placed himself at Mallow being but 6000 acres, and at the earnest request of Sir Thomas Norreys and sundry of the Gent. undertakers left it unto Sir Thos. Norreys, who expecting to have been placed at Imokilly, and finding no place there, for that it is all claimed as chargeable lands, sent his people to the Bantry, where Edward Rogers, Esqre. was to have been placed; and finding there in all not passing 4000 acres, the place being far off and dangerous, and all the rest thereabouts claimed by others of the Irish, is driven, and the same Edw. Rogers also, to return all their people, saving some few that of themselves are contented still to stay there. John Beecher hath the one-half of Kinalmeaky passed unto him by patent; he sold not, nor yet doeth enjoy it quietly, in respect of Mac Carthy Reagh, and the O'Mahons, although the titles were this summer adjudged against Mac Carthy Reagh, and therefore not many people are there as yet. Hugh Worth hath the other moiety of Kinalmeaky, who hath received the like disturbance, and therefore hath had few there.'

"J. POPHAM."

The undertaking of lands in Ireland, some of which were declared forfeited by royal decree, others by a less ceremonious process of the undertakers themselves, may not have been without its risks, but certainly it must have had also its attractions to have retained so enduring a hold upon the mind of this great legal functionary. When filling the high office of Her Majesty's AttorneyGeneral, he had found time to visit Ireland, and make a personal survey of the lands of several of the native chiefs, which, though not yet forfeited by their owners, nor formally distributable by royal letters, were looked upon as in effect available to any one with sufficient capital to occupy them, and sufficient interest to secure

The spelling of this document has been modernised.

their possession when occupied. Upon that occasion Popham had contracted friendship and alliance with men of similar appetite for Irish lands; hence when the terrors of Donell Pipy, and the Bishop, had spread amongst the entire body of the undertakers" the leud men" who had scandalized Herbert-Barry at once invoked the influence of Popham for the common cause. Two years later we shall behold him making himself the medium of a renewal of every suspicion and accusation that had been current against Florence for years; at present he contented himself with laying Barry's letter, without any commentary of his own upon its contents, before the Privy Council, who were in anxious deliberation how best to put an end to the troubles of Munster, without sending thither the man who was seemingly alone qualified to do it. "Donel, the natural son of the Earl of Clancar, was playing the Robinhood worse than ever:" the enemies of Florence attributed this to "his malicious instigations, very secretly sent to him." Florence had the address to persuade Cecyll that no one but himself could put an end to these disorders; but the distrust of the Queen was not so easily overcome; she still hesitated to give her consent for his return to Ireland. Matters got rapidly worse: "the Bastard was out with some forty swords." "Browne was yet living in hopes of his head;" but that wicked head was still safe, and full of evil devices "against all men who wore hose after the English fashion." "Good Sir Thomas," nearly at his wit's end, suggested to the minister the policy of giving him a free pardon, and taking him and his loose men into the Queen's pay and employment; but in the mean time he assisted Browne with what means he could, to hunt him further into the wilderness. Sir William Herbert also, forgetful of former quarrels, made common cause with the chief assailant of the common nuisance. In return "Donell robbed Herbert's man of seven pound and his weapon." The next tidings of this restless spirit that reached the Privy Council, and quickened their deliberations, was that "he had spoiled and preyed the Abbey of Bantry." Other exploits of his are duly set forth by Barry, who little suspected that his narrative could have brought upon him the very evil that he was striving to

avert.

"Endorsed, 1593. March 22. The LORD BUTTEVANT to the R.Honble and his good Lord SIR JOHN POPHAM, K. L. Chife Justice of Englande geve this.

"Rt. Honble Having ben bolde to trouble y' Honor wth sundry my former tedious Ires, and having receivid that contynuall favur att y' hands as I cannot well tell howe to requite the same, yet never the lesse I shall and wilbe to the uttermoste of my power att y' comandment, and therefore psuminge the more upon the contynuance of y' Honble fav', I thought good to advertise you of certein rebellious attempts offred here lately by