Matheson Collection > Gleanings from Irish manuscripts

A POEM BY AODH MAC AINGIL
of Armagh in March, 1626, and died in Sep-
tember of the same year.
MacAingil's work on the Sacrament of Penance
is interesting, not only as an example of the best
Irish prose, but also as an evidence of the practical
endeavour of the Franciscans to rescue the Irish
Catholics from the wholesale illiteracy to which
many circumstances condemned them. It is
doubtful, however, whether many of the people
learned to read as a result of their labours. Their
efforts were rendered too limited and too spas-
modic by persecution, and the long Confederate
War and the horrible years that followed rendered
education, outside the few bardic centres that
remained, almost impossible. Whatever instruc-
tion the people got reached them through the
preachers, and in this work the Franciscan Order
played a perilous and glorious part.
The poem here printed is preserved on a loose
sheet of paper in the Franciscan Convent,
Merchants* Quay, Dublin, and the form and
signature of the note at the end seem to indicate
that the leaf is the Archbishop*s autograph.
Tomás Raithile tells me he has seen copies in
H.4.14, H.4.26, p. 123 {circa 1 701), and H.5.28,
f. 1 8 3 {circa iGjg), in the library of Trinity College,
Dublin, and there are others in the Royal Irish
Academy manuscripts 23K.36, p. 187, 23.G.25,
p. ^^, and 23.B.25, in all three of which the piece
is ascribed to Eoghan Ruadh Mac an Bhaird. The
verses on the vanity of the world are supposed
to have been spoken by the skull of Aodh Ruadh
97 H