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The life and times of Aodh O'Neill, prince of Ulster
The life and times of Aodh O'Neill prince of Ulster Author:John Mitchel Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION. Twenty-thkee years have gone by since the writer composed this small volume. It was undertaken at the suggestion of Thomas... more » Davis for the series called "Library of Ireland," anp has had quite as much popularity as it deserved. Since the time of its publication, a very largo mass of historic material, then inaccessible to the writer, has been for the first time brought to light, specially illustrative of the very period of our annals wherein O'Neill and O'Donnell flourished ; so that now, to do justice to the subject, the "Life of Hugh O'Neill" ought to be rewritten, and at far greater length than could be attempted in a slight popular sketch like the present. Not having leisure to undertake this agreeable task, which would otherwise please me well, I am obliged to let it go with all its imperfections on its head. But to many readers it may be desirable and useful that some slight account should be given of the actual materials which have now, by the zealous labours of many eminent scholars, become available for the due understanding of that deeply interesting era which saw the " Ee- formation," the great struggle between Irish clanship and English feudalism, and the beginning of the religious wars in our island. First in importance is the great work of John O'Dono- van—his edition of the Annals of the Four Masters, with copious and learned notes, topographical, historical, exegetical. It is true that the portion of those annals relating to the period embraced in this work was substantially accessible to me in the Library of the Royal Irish Academy, in the shape of the "M. S. Life of O'Donnell," often cited in the following pages. This Life of Hugh Roe O'Donnell had been written by one of the venerable Four Masters themselves, Franciscans...« less