noted Franciscan Father Francis Matthew (O'Mahony), who was put to death
at Cork by Inchiquin in 1644. The bald text of Dineen's "Life" was
published a few years since, without translation, in the 'Irish Rosary.'
The corresponding Brussels copy is in Michael O'Clery's familiar hand.
In it occurs the strange pagan-flavoured story of the British Monk
Constantine. O'Clery's copy was made in January, 1627, at the Friary of
Drouish from the Book of Tadhg O'Ceanan and it is immediately followed
by a tract entitled--"Do Macaib Ua Suanac." The bell of Mochuda, by the
way, which the saint rang against Blathmac, was called the 'glassan' of
Hui Suanaig in later times.

The "Life" here printed, which follows the Latin Life so closely that
one seems a late translation of the other, is as far as the editor is
aware, contained in a single MS. only. This is M. 23, 50, R.I.A., in
the handwriting of John Murphy, "na Raheenach." Murphy was a Co. Cork
schoolmaster, scribe, and poet, of whom a biographical sketch will be
found prefixed by Mr. R. A. Foley to a collection of Murphy's poems that
he has edited. The sobriquet, "na Raheenach," is really a kind of
tribal designation. The "Life" is very full but is in its present form
a comparatively late production; it was transcribed by Murphy between
1740 and 1750. It is much to be regretted that the scribe tells us
nothing of his original. Murphy, but the way, seems to have specialised
to some extent in saint's Lives and to have imbued his disciples with
something of the same taste. One of his pupils was Maurice O'Connor, a
scribe and shipwright of Cove, to whom we owe the Life of St. Ciaran of
Saighir printed in "Silva Gadelica." The reasons of choice for
publication here of the present Life are avowedly non-philological; the
motive for preference is that it is the longest of the three Lives and
for historical purposes the most important.