^{page 131 note a} Dr. Reeves, Proceedings of the R.I.A. viii. 446.

^{page 131 note b} This name, which signifies “fire,” when adopted into other languages becomes Aeda, Aidus, Aiduus, Ædeus, Edus, Hugh. With the diminutive termination an, it becomes Aedhan. “Aed, i. e. fire. By inverting the noun aed it becomes dea, i. e. the goddess of fire; et quod Vestam illam deam esse ignis fabulaverunt, Vesta dea ignis dicitur, i. e. aed. Cognate with αἷθος.”—O'Donovan. Also with Lat. Aedes, Skr. edhas “firewood,” AS. ad, root idh. Hence too the Gaulish tribe-name Aedui, and in Welsh aidd, warmth.” See Cormac's Glossary, translated by J. O'Donovan, ed. W. Stokes.

^{page 131 note c} Colgan, Act. SS. Bib. p. 200. See also Acta SS. (Bolland.) Jan. xxxi. (ii. 112) where will be found “Vita S. Aidani sive Maedoci Episcopi Fernensis ex duobus veteribus MSS.”

^{page 131 note d} Reeves, Adamnan's Life of St. Columba.

^{page 132 note a} Todd, Life of St. Patrick, page 98. O'Donovan, Notes to the Annals of the Four Master, a.d. 548, i. 187.

^{page 132 note b} Dr. Reeves, Proceedings of the R. I. A. viii. 447.

^{page 132 note c} Colgan, Act. SS., p. 208b.

^{page 132 note d} Colgan, ibid.

^{page 133 note a} Colgan, Vita S. Maidoci, Acta SS. Hib. 209 a.

^{page 133 note b} Todd, Life of St. Patrick, p. 226, and Montalembert, Les Moines d'Occident, iii. 88.

^{page 134 note a} Ancient Life of St. Molaise, MS. in Irish: Royal Irish Academy Library.

^{page 134 note b} It has been questioned whether the name of this shrine was not Brace, instead of Breac, Moedoc, Brace being an old Irish word for hand (see Mr. Stokes's edition of Cormac's Glossary, page 6, and also Introduction to the same, page xx. Brachium), and that it was meant for holding the relics of St. Moedoc's hand. To this theory Dr. Petrie inclined, but the form of the reliquary does not seem to support it; it is, as it were, a model of a primitive Irish church, whilst the shrines made for hands or arms were generally in the form of the member they were intended to preserve.*

^{page 134 note *} Like the Breac-bannagh of Scotland; Vide Reeves, S. Columba, p. 330.

^{page 134 note c} The adjective being taken substantively, as is common in Irish, as though one should say, “The speckled treasure of Moedoc.”

^{page 135 note a} Professor Rees's Essay on the Welsh Saints, p. 227.

^{page 135 note b} Dr. Reeves, Proceedings R.I.A. viii. 447.

^{page 135 note c} Vita S. Maidoci, Colgan, Acta SS. Hib. p. 208.

^{page 136 note a} Letter from the E. C. parish priest of Drumlane, Rev. Mr. O'Reilly, dated March 1866.

^{page 136 note b} Ulster Journal of Archæology, v. 110, 116. Petrie, Eccl. Architecture of Ireland, pp. 329 to 337.

^{page 136 note c} I am indebted to W. M. Hennessy, Esq. for the following note on this peculiar word:—

“Your correspondent is quite correct in observing that Dr. Petrie recognised a difference between the Polaire and the Tiac, as indeed he could not avoid doing, considering the quotation given at p. 336 of his work on the Round Towers. But it is not easy to decide in what the difference consisted.

“The meaning of the work Tiac is perfectly intelligible, for there can be no doubt of its being the same as the Latin thêca, an identity which Mr. Stokes, indeed, has already remarked (Irish Glosses, p. 70). But a Tiac might be used to carry anything, whereas the Polaire seems to have been used for carrying books.

“In many glossaries the word Polaire is explained tiac lebar, ‘a book-satchel,’ but we nowhere meet tiac explained polaire lebar, ‘a book-case.’ Polaire therefore was a generic term for book-satchels.

“But the word polaire is used in a different sense in our oldest Irish MS. I refer to Lebar-na-hulidhre (circa 1100 a.d.) In a tract treating of the advent of Antichrist, it states that ‘the change of his polairein his forehead will be the signal which he will bear;’ ‘soad a polaire na etan is é comartha bias fair.’ I have not had time to examine the ancient legend of Antichrist, to ascertain the exact meaning of polaire as here applied, but you may probably know it. It may have some reference to the ‘mark of the beast.’ There is a MS. in Trinity College, illustrated with drawings, representing the appearance of men at his (Antichrist's) advent. The mark of the beast is in the forehead of each, and, as persons come into shops to buy and sell, the shopkeepers are exhibited pointing to the mark, to show that they are of the right sort.

“Perhaps it is in connection with this legend of Antichrist that O'Clery (Glossary printed in Lhwyd's Archæologia) explains the word polaire as ‘comardha,’ a sign. But this is the only instance in which I find it so explained.

“O'Donovan has given, in his Supplement to O'Reilly's Irish Dictionary, voce polaire, only the two quotations already given by Dr. Petrie at p. 334, Eccl. Architecture. But under Pallaire (the same word in another form) he has quoted an extract from Colgan's translation of that part of the Irish Tripartite Life referring to Palladius. The Irish version has ‘ro fothaigh tri ecailsi, i. Cell fine, i farcaib a libair, acus in chomrair co taisib Poil acus Petair, acus in clar i scribad;’ ‘He founded three churches, i.e. Cill-fine, in which he left his books, and the shrine with the relics of Paul and Peter, and the tabula in which he used to write,’ &c. Colgan's translation of this sentence is ‘fecit Kellfine, ubi libros reliquit, una cum scrinio in quo SS. Petri et Pauli reliquiæ asservabantur, et tabulis [quibus ?] scribere solebat vulgo Pallaire appellatis.” (Trias Thaumaturga, p. 123.)

“In thus identifying Pallaire with Tabulæ, I have no doubt that Colgan had in view the Low-Latin Polerius, Pollerius, which Du Cange explains as ‘Catalogus ecclesiarum vel beneficiorum ecclesiasticorum cujuscumque episcopatus, vulgo poullié.’

“In Diefenbach's Supplement to Du Cange, the word paleare, palearium, is interpreted (from old German glossaries) ‘das har das einem ochsen am hals hangt,’ ‘the hair that hangs from the neck of an ox,’ and also ‘dat fell vor die beesten borst.’ But it would be hazardous to assume that paleare and polaire were one and the same word.

“I ought to have observed that polaire is written (fholaire) in the Tripartite Life (Irish), through influence of aspiration, not because it contains folios, as some have thought.

“This is all that I know about polaire and tiac.”

^{page 137 note a} Life of St. Columba, Leabhar Breac, fol. 16, 60.

^{page 137 note b} “It is a remarkable fact that all the books in the library of the Abyssinian Monastery of Souriani, on the Natron Lakes in Egypt, were recently found by an English traveller in a condition singularly resembling that of the Book of Armagh, and adding an interesting illustration of a practice probably derived from the same school. ‘The books of Abyssinia are bound in the usual way, sometimes in red leather and sometimes in wooden boards, which are occasionally elaborately carved in rude and coarse devices: they are then inclosed in a case, tied up with leathern thongs ; to this case is attached a strap, for the convenience of carrying the volume over the shoulders; and by these straps the books are hung to the wooden pegs, three or four on a peg, or more if the books were small: their usual size was that of a small, very thick quarto. Curzon's Monasteries of the Levant, p. 93 (Lond. 1849).” This passage is quoted by the Rev. Dr. Eeeves in his Notes on the words polaire and tiaga (Vita S. Columbœ, Adamnan, pp. 115, 116, 117,) in which he says, speaking of the latter, “Reliques were also carried in these satchels; ‘Aperiens jam S. Fiachra scetam suam ad ducendum inde librum baptismi, brachium S. Comgalli in aërem sursum velociter avolavit.’ Vit. S. Comgalli, c. 50; (Fleming, Collect, p. 313a.) It is worthy of notice that in Sulpicius Severus's Preface to his Life of St. Martin, where the printed text reads ‘Libellum quem de Vita S. Martini scripseram scheda sua promere,’ (Horn, p. 483,) the Book of Armagh uses the more significant term scetha (fol. 191 aa). See the curious mention of Tiaga in the legend of Longaradh (Todd's Introd. to Booh of Obits of C. C., p. lxxi.); from which it may be inferred that they used to be hung up in the manner already mentioned. (Ib. p. 117.)

^{page 138 note a} Petrie, Eccl. Arch. p. 333.

^{page 139 note b} Petrie, ib. p. 329.

^{page 139 note c} See for instance the Becket chasse, belonging to the Society of Antiquaries of London, a woodcut of which is given at p. 537 of the Catalogue of Works of Art, &c. exhibited in 1861 at Ironmongers’ Hall. A similar shrine is preserved in Hereford cathedral, and will be found engraved in the Rev. F. T. Havergal's Fasti Herefordenses, plate xi.

^{page 139 note a} See Petrie, Eccl. Arch. p. 189, where this oratory is figured, and also the drawing of the west gable of the oratory at Killaloe, at p. 275 of the same work.

^{page 140 note a} The figures in Plate XVI. are not arranged precisely as they occur on the reliquary.

^{page 140 note b} Fo. 4 b of the MS. figured in Mr. Stuart's Sculptured Stones of Scotland, vol. ii. pi. v.

^{page 142 note a} Ulster Journal of Archælogy. Zeuss (Gram. Celt. Introd. p. 29) also assigns the MS. to the eighth century.

^{page 143 note a} Lanigan, Eccl. Hist. i. 387.

^{page 143 note b} See Life of St. Dympna, by the Rev. J. O'Hanlon.

^{page 143 note c} Chronicon Scotorum, p. 171.

^{page 143 note d} W. M. Hennessy, Introduction to Chron. Scot. p. li.

^{page 145 note a} See paper read by Dr. Petrie before the Academy June 26, 1855, in MS.

^{page 145 note b} Lasair, flame (gl. flamma): the word is probably connected with loscad, W. Hosg, Corn, leski.—See Zeuss, p. 143. Lasair (=laxarac) is the W. Hachar. (Sea Irish Glosses, 128, p. 156, ed. by Mr. W. Stokes.)

The Irish used the diminutive of the names of saints as a mark of affection. The diminutive was formed by the termination an, en, or in, or by adding the adjective oc or og, little. Thus Aodh, diminutive Aodhan, or aodh, og, Sen, Senan, or Senog, &c. (Dr. Todd, Mart, of Don. App. Int. xliii. n.)

^{page 146 note a} Martyrology of Donegal, p. 245.

^{page 147 note a} Petrie, Hist, and Antiq. of Tara Hill, in Trans. R.I.A., vol. xvii., Antiquities, p. 125.

^{page 147 note b} Four Masters: Colgan, Acta SS., p. 192. Ussher, Ind. Chron. 570.

^{page 147 note c} Martyrology of Donegal, p. 247.

^{page 147 note d} Petrie, Ecclesiastical Architecture, sec. 4, p. 434.

^{page 149 note a} This should appear in Plate XX. instead of the staple of the hinge, with a ring for suspension, which in the original is on the opposite side of the case. The drawing was made from an electrotype reproduction of the shrine, which was necessarily manufactured in several pieces. In fastening these portions together the hinge and the staple, which are just of the same size, and occupy similar spaces in the two opposite sides, were misplaced. The error was not discovered until after the plate had been engraved.

^{page 149 note b} Topogr. Hib. dist. ii. c. 38.