PREFACE.

THIS is the fourth effort which I have made, to present to the world a faithful history of my country.

Whilst I was immured in a prison in Dublin, during parts of the years 1798 and 1799, charged by the oligarchy of England with the foul crime of treason, because I would not disgrace my name by the acceptance of an earldom and a pension, to be paid by the people whom I was courted to desert, and because I resisted their every art to induce me to become a traitor to my beloved Eri, I employed my time in writing a history of that ill-fated land, which I had brought down to a very late period, when an armed force of Buckinghamshire militia men entered my prison, and all the result of my labours, with such ancient manuscripts as I had then by me, were outrageously taken away, and have never since been recovered.

Having been removed from Dublin in March 1799, and taken off to Fort George in Scotland, in the very teeth. of the provisions of the Habeas Corpus Act, because I would not become a party to a compromise, whereby I should have destroyed my own fame, and justified the multitudinous acts of tyranny exercised towards me; in that military fortress I was occupied, when health permitted, in again writing the history of my native land, which I had brought down to

the last moment that I remained in that part of Scotland, where I was detained until the commencement of 1801, and from whence I was brought away a prisoner.

A part of my family and myself reached Forres, the first night after our departure, and the ladies having left their muffs in the room of the Inn in which we sat, they found on the succeeding morning that the messenger had ripped the linings, under the suspicion, no doubt, of communications from my fellow prisoners to their friends, whom I had left behind, being there secreted, in ignorance that I had given an assurance to governor Stewart, that neither I, nor any of my family, would be the bearers of any papers from them.

This occurrence, added to the circumstance of my manuscripts having been accidentally left behind at Meldrum, for which I had to send back a few miles, made my family apprehensive that if the messenger should lay his hands upon them, my captivity would be prolonged; and having passed a day of festivity at Aberdeen, with the officers and wives of a regiment of native Scots, who had been quartered at Fort George, during a part of the time of my abode there, and from whom my family and myself had experienced something more warm than mere attention; the scene brought back to our recollection days of former times, and the partner of my secret thoughts being entitled to command any sacrifice that she would ask, having requested of me to suffer her to commit my writings to the flames, I could not do otherwise than yield; Thus perished the fruits of my labour in Fort George.

Having regained my liberty shortly after my arrival in London, so far as going abroad, I did not resume my favourite object during my abode in England, which was till 1803, when I returned to my own country, and having availed myself of the earliest opportunity of reclaiming from the bowels

of the earth the most ancient manuscripts of the History of Eri, I recommenced my pursuit upon a more enlarged scale, and had completed the work down to the memorable era of 1315, since Christ, (when the five kings of Eri, laying aside their jealousies, invited Edward Bruce, a prince of their own race, to accept of the sovereignty of the land,) when it, and almost all my most valuable effects, to a great amount, perished in the flames which consumed all but the bare walls of the castle of Dangan, in the year 1809.

Were I a fatalist, assuredly I would have thought that it had been decreed, that an authentic history of Inisfail, the Isle of Destiny, was never to see the light. Having, for some time afterwards, been kept fully occupied by agents of the oligarchy of England, in defending my property and life; -liberty we wild Irish have none to lose,-I, for a while, abandoned my project, and until the arrival of Sir Francis Burdett in Ireland in 1817, meant to defer its execution; when I promised to present to him, at as early a day as possible, an history of Ireland on the truth of which he could rely which promise I now fulfil. This history is a literal translation into the English tongue, (from the Phonican dialect of the Scythian language,) of the ancient manuscripts which have, fortunately for the world, been preserved through so many ages, chances and vicissitudes.

Should any captious person be inclined to entertain suspicion of the antiquity of these manuscripts, I beg leave to observe, that I do not presume to affirm that the very skins, whether of sheep or of goats, are of a date so old as the events recorded; but this I will assert, that they must be faithful transcripts from the most ancient records; it not being within the range of possibility, either from their style, language, or contents, that they could have been forged.

So fully sensible was a man of Ireland, who far surpassed all his contemporaries, and in truth, most men, I allude to Henry Flood, that if encouragement were given to bring to light and investigate ancient records of Ireland, still existing, they would be the means of diffusing great knowledge of the antique world; and which, with the memorials of the east that even still remain, would illuminate all the intermediate spaces of the earth; so convinced was he, I say, of this fact, by means of the deep researches which his penetrating mind had made, that he bequeathed the whole of his large possessions for the purpose of instituting professorships in the University of Dublin, for the perpetuation of the Irish language, and the purchase of manuscripts therein. In this magnificent design, his views were unfortunately frustrated by the contemptible policy of the incubus that hath long over-lain unhappy Eri; for, a claimant was set up to the estates of the philosophic donor, to whom they were accordingly decreed! Had his bequest been suffered to take effect, there is no doubt but that very many manuscripts, of great antiquity and value, which now are mouldering in a neglected state, would have been brought forth.

It is not possible, nor would it be proper if it were, to anticipate exceptions which peradventure, may be taken to the chronicles of Eri. If such, however, should be made, and of value sufficient, the objectors may rely upon it, that satisfactory answers shall be given to all doubts and suspicions, which hitherto have invariably been found to be proportionate with the ignorance which at this moment pervades the people of England, with regard to the history, ancient and modern, of this celebrated land,-once the seat of learning, and equal and just laws, now of demoralization and injustice..

It remains that I now acquaint the world, that I shall instantly resume my work for the purpose of continuing the history of Eri, the next volume of which, to be brought down to the year of the Christian era, 1169; I hope to comp.ete so as to be ready for publication in the month of March next; and if I live, I will prepare the Chronicles of Ireland to the day of my birth in another volume; and then I will give the history of my own times in one other, the concluding volume of the whole; which five volumes will be a complete continued history of this noble island, under the names of Eri, to the year 1169, and of Ireland from that epoch, from the most remote time to the instant on which I shall drop my pen.

Paris, 1821.

O'CONNOR.