The editor's best thanks are due, and are hereby most gratefully
tendered, to Rev. M. Sheehan, D.D., D.Ph., Rev. Paul Walsh, Rev. J.
MacErlhean, S.J., M.A., as well as to Mr. R. O'Foley, who, at much
expense of time and labour, have carefully read the proofs, and, with
unselfish prodigality of their scholarly resources, have made many
valuable suggestions and corrections.

P.P.




INTRODUCTION--GENERAL

A most distinctive class of ancient Irish literature, and probably the
class that is least popularly familiar, is the hagiographical. It is,
the present writer ventures to submit, as valuable as it is distinctive
and as well worthy of study as it is neglected. While annals, tales and
poetry have found editors the Lives of Irish Saints have remained
largely a mine unworked. Into the causes of this strange neglect it is
not the purpose of the present introduction to enter. Suffice it to
glance in passing at one of the reasons which has been alleged in
explanation, scil.:--that the "Lives" are uncritical and romantic, that
they abound in wild legends, chronological impossibilities and all sorts
of incredible stories, and, finally, that miracles are multiplied till
the miraculous becomes the ordinary, and that marvels are magnified till
the narrative borders on the ludicrous. The Saint as he is sketched is
sometimes a positively repulsive being--arrogant, venomous, and cruel;
he demands two eyes or more for one, and, pucklike, fairly revels in
mischief! As painted he is in fact more a pagan deity than a Christian