1 Incidentally, another Gofraidh, the Gofraidh Ó Cléirigh who composed poems 61 and 62 here, has escaped the notice of Father Walsh in his The O Cléirigh family of Tír Conaill.

2 The Short Annais of Tír Conaill have been published, with notes, by Fr. Paul Walsh in I.B.L., xxii 105 ff., from T.C.D. MS. H 1. 10 (not H 1. 19 as he states). Flower (B.M. cat. Ir. MSS, ii. 253) mentions another copy, of the second half of the eighteenth Century The R.I.A. contains two more, MSS 23 M 12 and 23 N 33, the former, as stated in the catalogue, in the hand of Father Maghnus Ó Domhnaill (another of whose MSS is dated 1706), and the latter, entitled Oiris oirdearca Tire Conaill do réir Sheaan Uí Nechtain, written by Nicholas Kearney, who states that he copied it from a MS lent to him from Maynooth College Library. A search in Maynooth College Library, however, has failed to bring to light the source of Kearney's copy.

An examination of the T.C.D. MS H 1. 10 shows it to be, as stated in the R.I.A. Cat. Ir, MSS, a copy by Aodh Ó Dálaigh of R.I.A. MS 23 M 12. The omission of the word dêag ,however, in the ‘ Niall Garbh ’ entry in 23 M 12, shows that this is not the original, and it would appear that the missing Maynooth MS is not the original either, as Kearney's copy may be said to be identical with 23 M 12, save where he failed to solve some of the contractions.

3 Meehan gives 1626 in The fate and fortunes (1886), p. 222, but without reference.

4 The use of the word compeirt (incarnatio) in the poem might indicate that the poet was using the old style. Another difficulty is the Statement in The Short Annals that Niall Garbh died in 1626, after having been eight[een] years in the hands of King James, but James died on the 27 March 1625 and Niall Garbh was arrested in June 1608.

It would be interesting to know when the new style came to be used generally in Gaelic Ireland. Pacata Hibernia, (1810), p. 253, gives a letter from Hugh O'Neill dated 6 Feb. 1601, with the subscription, stilo novo.