J. F. Campbell Collection > Transactions of the Ossianic Society > Volume 4

race, and second son of Breasa] Breac, or the speckled.
From this Nuada Neacht is descended the stock of the
Lagenians ; he was king of Tara : and it was he who slew
Eidirsgeoil Mor, or the Great, the son of the descendant
of larnaillin, which deed he committed in opposition to
Lugliaidh Kiamhdhearg, and thereupon he became king of
Ireland. From the aforesaid Nuada Neacht descended
Fionn Ua Baoiscne and the celebrated Caoilte Mac Ronain.
For Finn's pedigree see page 285.
Some of our Scottish antiquaries have sought from the
mere name to represent Fionn as of Scandinavian or rather
Finnish origin ! but the attempt is so devoid of proof or
evidence, as to be worthy merely of notice as an ingenious
paradox. His death occurred, according to the annals
of Innisfallen, in A.D. 283, in the fourth year of the
reign of Cairbre Liffeachair, when, says our veracious
chronicler, fell the celebrated general of the Irish militia,
Fionn the son of Cumhall, by the treacherous hand of a
fisherman named Atlilach, son of Dubhdrenn, who slew
him with his fishing spear at Eath Breogha, near the Boyne,
whither he had retired in his old age to spend the remainder
of his life in tranquillity from the noise and tumult of war.
The collection of poems, which forms the present volume,
are taken from copies made by the following scribes : —
The Agallam h is take n from a copy made in 1780 by a
Mr, L aurence O'Foran, who ke pt a village scliool at Kil^
leen, near Po rtlaw, in the county of Waterford. It coii-
ams besides, many other interesting poems and prose
matters relative to the Fenian period of our history.
The battle of Cnoc-an-air, or Hill of Slaughter, was
taken from a large volume compiled about the year 1812,
by Clare scribes, for the Eev. Thomas Hill, of Cooreclure,
a member of our Society ; it now belongs to Mr. Blake
Foster of Knockmoy, county of Galway, who kindly lent