By The Way :: :: University of Virginia Library

MacMurlagh kill'd Flantagh, and Cormac killed Hugh,
Having else no particular business to do.
O'Toole killed O'Gorman, O'More killed O'Leary,
Muldearg, son of Phadrig, kill'd Con, son of Cleary.
Three show'rs in the reign of King Niall the Good
Rain'd silver and honey and smoking red blood.
Saint Colman converted a number of pagans,
And got for his friars some land of O'Hagan's,
The King and his clansmen rejoiced at this teaching
And paused from their fighting to come to the preaching.
The Abbot of Gort, with good reason no doubt,
With the Abbot of Ballinamallard fell out,
Set fire to the abbey-roof over his head,
And kill'd a few score of his monks, the rest fled.
The Danes, furious pirates by water and dry-land,
Put boats on Lough Erne and took Devenish Island;
The Monks, being used to such things, in a trice
Snatching relics and psalters and vessels of price,
Got into the Round-Tower and pull'd up the ladder;
Their end, for the Danes lit a fire, was the sadder.
Young Donnell slew Murlagh, then Rory slew Donnell,
Then Connell slew Rory, then Dermod slew Connell;
O'Lurcan of Cashel kill'd Phelim his cousin
On family matters. Some two or three dozen

Of this Tribe, in consequence, killed one another.
MacFogarty put out the eyes of his brother
James Longthair, lest James should be chosen for chief.
At Candlemas, fruit-trees this year were in leaf.
King Toole, an excitable man in his cups,
Falls out with King Rorke about two deerhound pups,
And scouring the North, without risking a battle,
Burns down all the houses, drives off all the cattle;
King Rorke to invade the South country arouses,
Drives off all the cattle, burns down all the houses.
If you wish for more slaughter and crimes and disasters
See, passim, those Annalists called “the Four Masters.”

One of the O'Clearys became the principal compiler of that famous Chronicle of Ireland upon which the name of Annals of the Four Masters has been accidentally and not very happily fastened, but really called Annala Rioghachta Eircann, “Annals of the Kingdom of Erin.”