the earth," this would throw no light on the etymology of ARD_macha_.

"HIBERNICUS" (No. 14. p. 217.) is partly right and partly wrong; he
adopts the anglicised spelling of the second syllable, although he
seems aware that the first syllable ought to be _Ard_; and he admits
also that this word is a substantive, signifying a _height_, not the
adjective _high_. "A high plain," in Irish, would be, not Ardmagh,
or Ardmoy (as it would have been anglicised), but _Magh-ard_ (Anglice
_Moyard_). Great light will be thrown on the whole subject of the
etymology of Irish typographical names, when the Index to my friend
Mr. O'Donovan's edition of the _Annals of the Four Masters_ makes its
appearance.

I may add too, in conclusion, that Camden is wrong in suggesting that
_Armach_ (as he spells it, retaining, curiously enough, the correct
etymology of the last syllable) is identical with _Dearmach_ (where
the last syllable ought to be _magh_). This latter place is the
well-known Durrow, in the county Westmeath; and its name, in Irish,
is _Duir-magh_, which is really a compound from _magh_, a plain. Bede
tells us, that the word signified, in the Scottish language, _Campus
roborum_ (see Bede, _Hist. Eccl._ lib. iii. c. 4.); but Adamson (_Vit.
Columbæ_, c. 39.) more correctly translates it, "monasterium _Roboreti
Campi_." It is not likely that such authorities could confound Durrow,
in Westmeath, with the ecclesiastical metropolis of Ireland, and
patriarchal see of St. Patrick.

Whoever the Mach or Macha was from whom Ardmacha has its name
(whether the queen called Macha-mong-ruadh, whose reign is assigned
by O'Flaherty to A.M. 3603, or the older Macha, who is said to be the
wife of Nemedius), it should be borne in mind, that the word whose