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the surrounding country. On their ap- proach, the inhabitants of Limerick fired the city, and the confederates retreated, " rather than run the risk," says Cambrensis, " to which they would be exposed in a country so hostile and so remote from all succour." The same writer attributes their failure to the pusillanimity of De Braosa and the pack of "cut-throats, and murderers, and lewd fellows" who accompanied himfrom Wales. FitzStephen's latter days were clouded by misfortunes. His son and many of his bravest companions fell in battle with the Irish; he was himself beleaguered in Cork, and when the siege was raised by his nephew, Eaymond le Gros, it was found that the first and the bravest of the little band of Anglo-Norman adventurers had been deprived of reason. He died shortly afterwards, in 1 182. His memory is thus spoken of by Giraldus Cambrensis : "O excellent man, the true pattern of singular courage and unparalleled enter- prise, whose lot it was to be obnoxious to fickle fortune and suffer adversity with few intervals of prosperity.., Thou wert indeed another Marius ; for if you consider his prosperity no one was more fortunate; if you consider his misfortunes, he was of all men most miserable. Fitz- Stephen was stout in person, with a handsome countenance, and stature some- what above the middle height; he was bountiful, generous, and pleasant, but too fond of wine and women." sms 196 202

Flaun Mainistrech was a chief pro- fessor of the school of St. Buite, at Monas- terboice, in the nth century. He was of Munster extraction, "Of Flann's private life or history nothing remains to u; of his public life we have on record the fact of his having risen to the highest position in the profession of learning, . . and we have evidence of his great celebrity in after ages in the high compliment paid to him by the Four Masters (whose words of praise are always very measured), in the following entry of his death: 'A.D. 1056. Flaun of the Monastery, chief professor of Saint Buite's monastery, the wise master of the Gaedhils in literature, history, philosophy, and poetry, died.' " -^' " Flann compiled very extensive historical syn- chronisms, which have been much respected by some of the most able modern writers on early Irish history." ^ O'Curry gives a lengthened analysis of his numerous poems, and writes as follows of some of them: "They are precisely the documents that supply life and the reality of details to the blank dryness of our skeleton pedi- grees. Many a name lying dead in our genealogical tracts, and which has found 206

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its way into our evidently condensed chronicles and annals, will be found in these poems, connected with the death, or associated with the brilliant deeds of some hero whose story we would not willingly lose; while, on the other hand, many an obscure historical allusion wUl be illustrated, and many a historical spot as yet unknown to the topographer will be identified, when a proper investigation of these and other great historical poems pre- served in the Book of Leinster shall be un- dertaken as part of the serious study of the history and antiquities of our country." '^ ^'

Flannan, Saint, a confessor and Bishop of Killaloe, 639, was the son of Turlough, King of Thomond. Educated in the monastery founded by St. Molua, he ulti- mately retired to Lismore, where he was joined by his father, who resigned his throne. We are told that he spent much time in this retreat between " the soaring mountains on the north and the thick and extensive forests on the south." Archaeo- logists have maintained that the traces of artistic taste acquired during a sojourn in Rome are evident in the churches erected by St. Flannan in Munster. He died "full of years," and was buried at KUlaloe, of which he was the first Bishop. His f estiv&l is the 1 9th December. "5 '34 235

Fleming, Patrick, Rev., of the family of the Lords of Slane, was born in the townland of Lagan, County of Louth, 17th April 1599. At thirteen he was sent to the Continent, and studied diligently at Douay and Louvain ; at the latter place he took the habit of St. Francis on 17th March 1617. At Paris he became intimate with Hugh Ward, and perceiving his capa- city for the task, induced him to undertake the work of collecting materials for a work on the lives of the Irish saints. In 1623 he removed to Rome in company with Hugh MacCaughwell, afterwards Arch- bishop of Armagh. After studying in St. Isidore's at Rome, Fleming returned to Louvain; and in a few years removed to Prague, where in 163 1 he was ap- pointed President of the Irish College. When Prague was about being besieged by the Elector of Saxony in 1 63 1 he fled with a companion, but was set upon by some peasants and murdered, 7th Novem- ber in the same year. Fortunately when departing for Prague he left his Collectanea Sacra in MS. in the hands of Moret, a printer in Antwerp. It appeared in Lou- vain in 1677. The work is now extremely rare, having at Dr. Todd's sale brought .£70. An exposition of the contents, by Dr. Reeves, will be found in the Ulster Journal of ArchcBology, vol, ii. "339 206