O, Burrin! O, Burrin! what sights hast thou seen!
'Tis known the Dalcassians' got into fierce passions,
At seasons, and then there were "wigs on the green!"
And Clare suffered much,-yet men brag an
Immense deal to-day on the banks of the Lagan.

I've a horror of Thomond, because after noon,
In its houses you never meet noggin or spoon;
Twelve o'clock daily there bounds the stomach's horizon,
And food after that you can no where clap eyes on!

In the house of O'Brien (that's Donough)2 I spent
A Christmas that lasted till long after Lent;
We had bread, butter, bacon, and beef in abundance,
And oft round the board made the bottle, our sun, dance.

In Cealla,3 that region of hunger and storms,
The sick die of want by the road sides in swarms;
If you fancy a grave where broad meadows lie fallow
And blighted, you'll find one in dark dreary Cealla.

4

The pinch-bowel Clan of Mac Mahon, the Red,
Give you just on your dish the bare shadow of bread;
An ant put in harness, I think, would be able

To drag their best cake and their biggest from table.

5

The O'Carrolls of Ely, love the quern's hoarse sound,
They've got only one cow and one sheep as I found ;
After starving some while in the house of these skin-flints,
My hands became hard, black, and meagre, like thin flints.

1 Dalcassians, i.e., the O'Briens and their cor-relatives. The poet here is wide of Aenghus's meaning.

2 Donough. This is not in the Irish original.

3 Cealla, a townland near Corofin, in the County of Clare, also desolated by the famine in 1847. Mangan has here left out the verses relating to Kilkishin, the Fergus, and Caislean Chuinn.

4 Mac Mahon, i.e., Mac Mahon of Corca-bhaiscin, in the south-west of the County of Clare. Mangan has here left out the quatrain relat· ing to Corbally, the seat of one of the Mac Namaras of Član-Choilen; as well as that relating to O'Daly's house, and its reciters of song!

5 The O'Carrolls of Ely, were considered as belonging to Munster at this period.

Cross Kian O'Carroll dwells there, with his rib,
In a hovel the size of a basket or crib;

A withered and weazened old couple-forgetful
Of God and the Devil, sick, snappish and fretful.

Knocked down by a pig I fell into their den,

Such an upset I hadn't got, Munster knows when ;

I looked round quite bewildered, and heard Kian squall out,
"Fall out again,1 friend, or perhaps you and I may fall out!"

Last O'Meagher, for yourself-last, though certes not least,
You're a prince, and are partial to mirth and the Feast;
Huge cauldrons, vast fires, with fat sheep, calves, and cows and
Harp-music, distinguish your house mid a thousand.

[Here the poet was stabbed by O'Meagher's servant, but before he expired he is said to have addressed these lines to his murderer:-]

Many are the bitter satires that I acknowledge (alas !) to have written

On the nobles and clans of Munster, but none ever requited me with a blow,

'Till O'Meagher gave me my death-wound :-I perish down

smitten

By a chieftain whom I eulogized-this is my lamentation and my woe!

1 Fall out again. This is in the true style of the satirist and the

best stanza in the whole of this translation.

2 O'Meagher resided at Drom-saileach in the barony of Ikerrin, not far from Roscrea.

ADDITIONAL NOTES AND CORRECTIONS.

Page 13, line 16 from bottom, read "James Daly, the Cork Distiller, was a native of Carrigtoohill, and died in January, 1850, without issue."

line 3 from bottom, for "Laherdoty" read " Laherndota." note 1, read" Mr. Peter Lavalli, Peruquier of the Four Courts, Dublin," as it appears that he has not removed to Paris.

14, line 5 from bottom, cancel "J. P." from Richard O'Donovan, Esq.

line 4 from bottom, for "Skibbereen" read "Ahakista." 15, line 7 at top, for "Derry-clovane" read "Gleann-oulin." line 30, for "but of this we have no portion remaining" read "but this was very short, and, rather an impreca. tion than a satire." A copy of it is preserved in a MS. in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin, H. 3, 17, p. 840, which runs as follows:

"Cen colt ar crrb cernene,

Cen gert ferbu fonassad arthrinde;

Cen adba fir a rand rubai,

Diroirce con dil daime reisse ropsen breisse.”

This satire, which was composed by Cairbre Mac Eathna, surnamed Crithinbheal, is the oldest specimen of the Irish language we have seen; and we have here given it for the purpose of obtaining a translation from some of our Irish literati, for our next edition. It has been glossed by various writers; and O'Clery in his Glossary, under the word Černe, gives the following explanation of the first line:

"Cernine 1 miasa beaga, nó clair beaga, amhail a dúbairt an file Carrbre Mac Cażna.

"Gan colt for crib cerníne, i gan biad go luaė ar ṁéisínib, no ar ¿laírinib.”

56, note 1.—It is but fair to remark, that Moryson writes as an enemy to the old Irish race; and besides, that he had not seen, with his own eyes, the Northern Irish Chieftain O'Cane, and his daughters, sitting naked. It is moreover, not unfair to question the authenticity of the assertion of an unknown Bohemian Baron; and it is but right for the Irish to argue, that it is not likely that the proprietor of a large territory (such as O'Cane was), who could converse in the Latin language with a Bohemian Baron, would have been so lightly, or so barbarously clad as Moryson describes him.

Let the curious reader contrast it with the description given of the dress of a neighbouring chief O'Donnell, about half a century earlier, by Sentleger in a letter to the King, recommending that

parliamentary robes should be bestowed upon him. He describes O'Donnell's dress thus:-" A coat of crimson velvet with aiglets of gold, twenty or thirty pair; over that a great double cloak of crimson satin, bordered with black velvet, and in his bonnet a feather set full of aiglets of gold."

It may not be out of place here to remark also, that Moryson himself, incidentally, affords us a clue to the skill of the native Irish in agriculture, in the following passage, where he laments the necessity of destroying the corn of the O'Mores in Leix, in the year

1600:

"But the best service at that time done was the killing of Owney Mac Rory [O'More], a bloody and bold young man, who lately had taken the Earl of Ormond prisoner, and had made great stirs in Munster. He was the chief of the O'More's sept in Leix, and by his death (17th of August, 1600) they were so discouraged, that they never after held up their heads. Also a bold bloody Rebel Callogh Mac Walter [O'More], was at the same time killed; besides, that his Lordship's staying in Leix till the 23rd of August, did many other ways weaken them-for during that time, he fought almost every day with them, and as often did beat them.

"Our Captains, and by their example (for it was otherwise painful), the common soldiers did cut down with their swords all the rebels' corn, to the value of £10,000, and upwards, the only means by which they were to live, and to keep their Bonnaghts (or hired Soldiers). It seemed incredible that by so barbarous inhabitants the ground should be so manured, the fields so orderly fenced, the towns so frequently inhabited, and the highways and paths so well beaten, as the Lord Deputy here found them. The reason whereof was, that the Queen's forces, during these wars, never till then came amongst them."