J. F. Campbell Collection > Transactions of the Ossianic Society > Volume 5

SIXTH ANNUAL REPORT
KBAU ON THK ITXH DAY OF MARCH, 1859.
The Council regret being obliged to announce the demise of three of your
most indefatigable members during the past year — namely, the Rev. D. A.
O'Sidlivan, P.P., Enniskean, Co. Cork, the Rev. Matthew Kelly, D.D., St.
Patrick's College, Maynooth, and Dr. Robert Cane of Kilkenny.
The CouncU cannot but regret the unavoidable delay of your Publications
in their hands, but matters have now been so arranged, that their successors
in office wUl henceforth have no difficulty in this respect. The thanks of the
Ossianic Society are due to His Grace the Duke of Devonshire, for his courtesy
in allowing them to collate one of their forthcoming Publications with the
original in the Book of Lismore, the property of His Grace ; and also to the
President and Council of the Royal Irish Academy, for the facility afforded to
the Editor of the forthcoming Volume (IV.) in collating his proofs with the
manuscripts in their large and valuable collection.
SEVENTH ANNUAL REPORT
READ ON THB 17TH VAX OF MAJttCH, 1860.
Thk Council of the Ossianic Society have much pleasure in stating that their
efforts in the cause of our country's ancient literature have been warmly ap-
preciated by the public and the press. This is visible in the annually increasing
number of Members, many of them eminent in the various paths of know
ledge, enrolled upon the Society's list. At the last Annual Report of the
Coimcil, the Societj' numbered 659 Members — at present it is composed of 746.
To aid and extend the good work, a kindred Society has lately been established
in New York, with a Council composed of Irish scholars, which has already
remitted a sum of £8 for our Transactions of the past years. We congratulate
our brethren in the United States upon their energy and patriotism.
The works of the Ossianic Society are well calculated to become popular.
Less dry than strictly historical books, they throw open the Portals of the
Past to the reader, and bring him among the majestic forests of Ancient Erinn
— there to behold the enchantments of Fairy-power, to accompany Finn and
the Fianna in the chase and the battle-raid, to admire the chivalry of Oscar,
the "gold deeded," the beau-ideal of magnanimity, and to list to the melodious
harps and sweet lays of Oisin and the later bards.
The fifth volume of the Society's Transactions is already nigh to publication,
and will prove to be one of the most interesting of Irish works. It is entitled
]n)ceAcc t)A Ctioit)-óíi)tt)e — " The Proceedings of the Great Bardic Institu-
tion," and describes their tour through Erinn. It is taken from a vellum ma-
nuscript of the fourteenth century (the book of Mac Carthaigh Riabhach),
and appears under the Editorship of Professor Connellan. The power of the
bards — their use and abuse thereof, are vividly portrayed, the attributes of
the Chief Bard and his School enumerated, and his lays oif praise and satire
recorded.
Thus, we are yearly laying before the country works which must be of great
value to the future historians of Progress in this Island ; showing, as they do,
the literary, warlike, and domestic customs of the old inhabitants. Unveiling
the characteristics and deeds of Erinn and of her representative men during the
daj's of heathenry and the primal Christian ages ; do they not also open to our
poets a treasury more vast and varied than the Mabinogion of Wales and those
other Celtic legends of Brittany coidd exhibit ; and yet from these has the
Poet Laureate elaborated his celebrated " Idylls of the King."
It is desirable that all members who are in arrear should discharge the same
before the publication of the present book, else their names shall be struck off
the rolls of the Society.