Page:Foras feasa ar Éirinn - Keating; Comyn, Dinneen.djvu/21

Rh standards. A valuable edition of Keating's poems has been lately issued by Rev. J. C. Mac Erlean, S.J., for the Gaelic League.

A sketch of the life of the author prefixed to Haliday's edition of Keating, has been in part reprinted by Mr. O'Brien: O'Mahony also wrote a life for his translation; and other brief narratives have been published, though authentic materials are scanty. A full biography of Keating, however, with an account of the time in which he lived and the conditions under which he worked, is still a desideratum for the numerous and increasing class who now feel interest in him, his work, and his language.

I must content myself with a few approximate dates. Neither the year of his birth nor of his death is exactly known; but between 1570 and 1650 may be assumed as his period. He was born at Burges, and is buried at Tubrid, both in Co. Tipperary, and distant only a few miles. He was educated at Bordeaux, and returned to Ireland about 1610. His first known work, the treatise on the Mass, was written about 1615; though there is in the Franciscan. a small religious tract, attributed to him, which may be of earlier date, as also some of his poems. The 'Three Shafts of Death' was written about 1625, and the History was completed about 1634, certainly before 1640. In 1644 he built the little church of Tubrid in which he is interred, though the exact spot is not known.

From D'Arcy McGee's position in literature, an opinion from him on Keating's History of Ireland is of some interest. He writes:—"It is a semi-bardic and semi-historic work. It is full of faith in legends and trust in traditions. But its author has invented nothing. If it contain improbabilities or absurdities, they are not of his creation. He had gathered from manuscripts, now dispersed or almost unknown, strange facts wildly put, which jar upon our sense as downright fictions. They are not such. Ignorance has criticised