NOTES.
1TORNA'S LAMENT FOR CORC AND NIAL,
a. d. 423.
The rule de non apparentibus et non existentibus eadem ratio, has long been applicable to the Bardic remains of Ireland. Whatever the public may have heard of our ancient Fileas, it knows but little of their works; hence, an apparently well-formed, though certainly erroneous, conclusion seems to have been adopted, either that no such works have ever been extant, or that they have altogether perished by the hand of time, or in the unparalleled distractions of this unhappy country.[1]
- ↑ The people of Wales and Scotland have anxiously encouraged the publication of their ancient literature; but in Ireland, even to the present day, it has been almost entirely neglected. This national apathy maybe accounted for, in some degree, by our unhappy dissentions, and the division of our population into two great contending parties, the Anglo-Irish and the Milesian-Irish; both actuated by different views and interests, and, for some centuries, irreconcilable enemies. The former invariably looked with a jealous eye on the language and literature of Ireland, which they endeavoured to depreciate and destroy, as Anti-English and Anti-Protestant; while the latter, or ancient natives, though always well inclined to protect and restore those memorials of their ancestors, were debarred from so doing by political circumstances. Thus it has happened, that since the splendid projects of the Friars of Donegal in the seventeenth century, (which were unfortunately frustrated by the troubles of 1641,) no Irishman has as yet
