Here is a letter from O'Conor on Shinrone and from O'Donovan on hagiology or the legends of the saints.

ORDNANCE SURVEY LETTERS KING'S COUNTY

[Letter no. 47 from Thomas O'Conor ]

Roscrea,
February 9th 1838.

Sir,

We find recorded in the Annals of the Four Masters at the year 1533, that:-

"The Earl of Kildare went a second time to Ely to assist Ferganainm O'Carroll at Suidhe an Roin, and laid siege to the castle, where he had a good Constable of his people. He took the castle and then returned home."

Suidhe an Roin signifies "the Sitting of the Seal" and is now the name of a Parish and Town in the Barony of Clonlisk.

This Parish is Anglicised Sinrone in the Down Survey, which, in the description of the Parish, says that in it stand "the walls of a Church at Sinerone, and a castle, and a mill in repayre with some Irish cabbins."

The ruins of a Church are remembered to have existed in the Churchyard near the present Parish Church at Sinerone Town.

The castle stood at the rear of Mr. Dancer's house in Shinrone Town. The yard attached to the house is called the Castle Yard, and some of the wall belonging to the castle is said to be now used as a garden wall.

Tradition says it was erected by O'Carroll, and we see from the Annals above cited that Suidhe an Roin was in Ely. Whence it can be deduced that Shinrone was situated in Ely O'Carroll on that side
Castle of Cill Comain.

At A.D. 1548 in the Annals it is said that:-

"Edmond a Fali banished O'Melaghlin (Teige Roe) and all his tribe out of Delvin. He afterwards styled Art, the son of Cormac, the Mac Coghlan, and deprived Cormac of that portion of the country which he had possessed, and banished him westwards across the Shannon, after which he repaired the Castle of Cill Comain, and placed his own warders in it."

This Cill Comain must be Cillcummin in Tissarn Parish in the Barony of Garrycastle, which is co-extensive with Delvin Eathra, afterwards called Delvin Mac Coghlan, being the Territory of the family of Mac Coghlan.

Your obedient humble servant,
T. O'Conor
ORDNANCE SURVEY LETTERS KING'S COUNTY.

[ Letter no. 48 from John O'Donovan ]

Roscrea,
February 10th 1838.

Dear Sir,

We shall finish to-morrow, and if I can get a seat on or in the Limerick Coach, I shall go on to Dublin, if not, I wait till Monday. We can hardly procure two seats on the same day, as the coach is generally crowded.

We shall want the Name Books of the next Co. as soon as possible in order that the Extracts may be collected before we start for the country again. Mayo, I suppose, will be the next? Awful! My health is very much down, and I make no doubt but another winter's campaign would put an end to me, but I don't wish, as I have gone so far, to be killed, till I shall have examined all the oulde places of Ireland, and the stories connected with them. I have now traversed, since the 8th of May last, the whole country extending from Lough O'Gara to Carlow, and from Lough Sheelin to the Devil's Bit, which is a vast district, but I have injured my nerve by writing too much and sitting up too late. This I could have avoided by not doing so much; but if I don't work now, I won't be able to work in a few years hence, when I shall be an oulde fellow without nerve or vigor. If, however, the Saints of Ireland don't fast against me, I expect to live longer than St. Kieran, who, as he himself says, was approaching (near) his end, at the age of 33. I have been very severe on the Saints all along, for no other reason, to be sure, but because I am not a Saint myself, for, if I were, I would hide their faults as well as the pious Butler, who has omitted to relate (describe) the silly part of their conduct, and has holden up the heroic and noble part as an example to the faithful. He has manufactured his Lives of the Saints well, and so as to suit the feelings of the pious believers of his own age. Jocelyn had done the same and so had our honest Colgan, but unfortunately, the Saints of Jocelyn and the Saints of Colgan would not be Saints at all to the readers of Butler, and we must not, therefore, condemn that amiable Christian philosopher for rejecting those narrations which would offend the belief and religious feelings of the present day.

The principal fault which I reprehend in the writers of our Hagiology is their making their christian heroes too fond of duplicity and equivocation, which, according to my cold ideas of piety, savour more of the tricks of the arch rebel than of the pure doctrines which ought to emanate from the True Faith; but as these have passed the crucible of Doctors of Divinity, I should be very timid in pronouncing any opinion with regard to them, further than this, that I believe them to be the productions of an ulterior age, and therefore, rather to be considered as the fabricated stories of ignorant bards and Ecclesiastics, than as containing the sentiments of the original teachers of Christianity in Ireland. I could believe that pious frauds (1) sanctified chicanery, pretended visions, prophecies, visits from Angels, are all fabrications of the middle ages, when the minds of men were entirely diverted from real knowledge, and when the Ecclesiastics made use of the lowest and basest cunning to terrify the savage Chiefs to obedience and make them render the Church its due support.

(1). "Be ye cunning as serpents, but innocent as doves" favours in some measure these accounts of the equivocation of the old Saints, but they carried the cunning of the serpent to the cunning of the fox, and to the destruction of that noble camdon which elevates the human character.

This is the truth, and if anyone denies it, let him examine the original documents and say that Monks never forged prophecies never invented stories, or never told lies, and call me a heretic. This is all I have to say.

I have now done with this County and send all the Books of the Baronies of Clonlisk and Ballybritt, also all the Extracts, Rawson's Kildare, and Coote's King's County; also Beaufort's Ecclesiastical Map and all the Traces from old Maps which were sent me.

Your obedient servant,
John O'Donovan.