Page:Writings of Saint Patrick, Apostle of Ireland.djvu/21

Rh first edition was taken from that set forth by Dr. Todd in his St. Patrick, pp. 426-9. The translation there given was mainly the work of Whitley Stokes, and was a great advance upon the earliest version given by Dr. Petrie (see notes on Hymn at the end of book). The translation in the present work is in the main the improved version of Dr. Whitley Stokes. The alterations made in the older translation are all noted, and the grounds for them set forth in the critical notes. There are two MSS. of the Hymn, one in the Liber Hymnorum in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin, the other in the Bodleian copy of the Tripartite Life. The Hymn of Patrick has been set to music as a sacred cantata by the late Sir Robert Stewart, Professor of Music in the University of Dublin, and was performed for the first time in St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, on St. Patrick's Day, March 17, 1888. See remarks on Mrs. Alexander's Version, p. 110.

In the present edition we have given the hymn in the ancient Irish from the MS. in Trinity College, Dublin, accompanied by a translation of it into the modern Irish language. The latter translation has been made by the late Rev. James Goodman, M.A., Professor of Irish in the