Matheson Collection > Gleanings from Irish manuscripts

A POEM BY AODH MAC AINGIL
Irish Catholicism and Irish Nationality owe so
much to the great Franciscans of the seventeenth
century that it is desirable that every scrap in
the shape of literature that they produced should
be made accessible. Recently I came across the
verses printed below, and as they were written
by the well-known theologian, Aodh Mac Aingil,
Archbishop of Armagh, I am sure they will be of
interest. Two other religious pieces in verse are
ascribed to him, one preserved in the Book of the
O Conor Don, folio 85, and another, on the
Infancy of Our Saviour, portions of which Mr.
Thomas F. O Rahilly published in the Claidheamh
Soluis of December 25th, 191 5. A new edition
of his Irish prose work Scáthán Shacramuinnte
na hAithrighe (Antwerp, 161 8) is in course of
preparation by Professor O. J. Bergin of Univer-
sity College, Dublin. He was always known to his
brethren by the name of Mac Aingil ' angeFs son,*
and was possibly so called from his singular piety :
compare the remark of Pope Urban VIII, on
hearing of his premature death, non hominem
sed angelum amisimus (Moran, Archbishops of
Dublin, 297). His true surname was Mac
Cathmhaoil, from which Cavellus^ his Latin name,
is derived. There is a good account of his life and
works in Renehan, Collections on Irish Church
History, i, 24-27. He was appointed Archbishop
96