Page:Sermons in Irish-Gaelic - O'Gallagher.djvu/11

Rh of Tuam, or, as is commonly supposed, by Murtagh King, a tax was levied on the Province of Connacht. Robert Boyle paid the expense of re-printing it in 1687. The Rev. John Colgan could never have published the volumes of Lives of Irish Saints and his Trias Thaumaturga if he had not had generous patronage. The sons of genius and literary toil, sought and usually have found fostering encouragement from the noble-minded and the munificent. Kings and nobles from the days of Philip and the Ptolemies stretched out the hand of support and favor to literary laborers in the past. At home, in 1632—the greatest work now extant—The Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland— would never have been handed down to the present time to tell "of the great men who figured on the stage of life in preceding ages—how our forefathers had employed their time, how long they continued in power—and how they finished their days,—but for the princely munificence of Lord O'Gara, Chief of Coolavin, who for four years most liberally paid the Four Masters for their labor." "You it was," says Brother Michael O'Clery, in his preface to the Annals, addressing Fergal O'Gara, Lord of Moy O'Gara, "who stood forward in patronising this undertaking. . . In truth every benefit derivable from our labour is due to your protection and bounty." With good reason these words can be applied to the Lord Primate, and to him alone, by the present writer.

The promises of support, calculated to extend the circulation of the volume, received from the Most Rev. James MacDevitt, Lord Bishop of Raphoe, have been very encouraging, and accordingly they merit and receive the writer's warmest thanks.

Great care has been taken in revising the proof-sheets. The typographical correctness which the book as a whole presents is owing, in a great measure, to the constant care bestowed on the work by Mr. John Glynn,