In this note O'Donovan refers to the various "authorities" on Clonmacnoise, over the previous 100 years. It is to the credit of O'Donovan that his interpretation largely still stands.

Of the signification of the name Clonmacnoise

Vallancey and the other Triumviri of Irish history have asserted that Cluain Mac Nois signifies "the Resting Place of the Sons of the Chiefs" and Dr. Charles O'Conor, who has procured immortal honor, fame and glory for his ridiculous translation of the first part of the Irish Annals, has subscribed to the same derivation. Are we, then, to believe that this Church had not the name till it became a celebrated burial place long after the death of St. Kieran? (Was it not called Cluain Mac Nois before St. Kieran built his little Church in it? Surely it was).

The first name of the place was Druim Tipraid (Dorsum Tibraidi) from Tiprad, King of Connaught, A.D. ? and, according to the Annals of Inisfallen, it received the name of Cluain Mac Nois from Nois Maccaidh, King of Connaught. The oldest form of the name, however, to be met with is Cluain Muc Nois (which seems the true name) and signifies the Cluain of the Swine of Nois. Now to refute the Triumviri, whom I call the Breallsuns: Cluain does not mean a resting place, in the sense of tomb, grave or burial place, nor in any other sinse unless one wishes to reason away every meaning of the word by saying that the stork rests upon the storm. Cluain is simply, and in a compound state, the name of ten thousand places in Ireland, but most certainly these are not resting places, graveyards or tombs, but insulated spots or bog islands, sometimes, no doubt, by chance containing Churches and graveyards, but not in one instance out of six hundred. There are twenty four cluains in Airteach in Roscommon and if one of them happens to have a Churchyard upon it (which is really the case by chance) are we to infer from this that cluain means a Churchyard, poetically "a resting place" i.e., a place where one rests when he has got tired of his life. There are twenty four cluains in Tuath-Muighe (King's County) none of which contain a Churchyard or place of rest for the faithful departed; whence, then, have they all gotten the name of cluain or resting place (ma's fior breag)? They are all fertile bog islands and may perhaps have received the name of cluain or resting place from the lazy inhabitants of Offaly, who rested upon them after having been tired from the toils of predatory excursions! But not a son and Nois is not "of the chiefs"! What, then, did the Triumviri mean? They meant to humbug! Cluain Muc Nois signifies the Cluain or Bog Island of the Pigs of Nois, and this will be believed as soon as men are able to lay aside their romance and think soberly upon the real nature of names and history.

Cluain-Muc-Nois and its woods had fed many a herd of pigs before Saint Kieran or his cemetery existed and the name has nothing to do with Church or resting place. Resting Place of the Sons of the Chiefs sounds a very fine explanation of the name of this place and is therefore sure to be wrong! and, when one looks into it, what does it mean? Was this place not the resting place of the chiefs themselves as well as their sons?

The name is now pronounced on the Connaught side of the River Cluan 'uc Rois (the Resting Place of the Son of Rosa) a form which it would puzzle the devil himself to account for, but one who is acquainted with the dialects of the Irish (i.e., Celtic) will at once see the process of the change, thus:-

Cluan Muc Nois
Cluan Ucnois, by aspirating the m and sinking it, then Cluan U-Crois,
n, after c, being always pronounced like r in Conn's half in deale (Leath Cuinn).

Your obedient servant,
John O'Donovan.

Of the inscriptions at Clonmacnoise

Archdall writes:- "There are several old monuments in this Church on which are inscriptions, said to be partly in Hebrew and partly in Irish."

And again:- "Before the west door stands a large old cross of one entire stone, much defaced by time, on which was some rude carving and an inscription in antique and unknown characters."

Sir Charles Coote improves on this and writes:-

"Many stones are found (meaning at Clonmacnoise) with characters of various workmanship and bear inscriptions of the Greek, Latin, Hebrew and Irish tongues." - Survey of the King's Co., p. 115.

Nearly the same words are repeated by Seward, Carlisle and all the rest of the minor of Irish Scribblers, who are all to be excuse as they only copied the account from Archdall, but it is astonishing to find the Registry of Clonmacnoise, as translated by Mac Firbisse, referring to similar inscriptions. It states than an account of the tributes due to St. Kieran was to be found inscribed on the stones in the cemetery of the Church in Hebrew characters!

I think that this reference to an account of dues, written in Hebrew characters is a piece of imposition on the part of the ecclesiastic who enlarged and remodelled the Life of St. Kieran in the 14th and 15th century, for the purpose of throwing dust into the eyes of the chiefs, who perhaps wanted to have the history of those dues investigated.

How far the Monks of Clonmacnoise may have forged documents of this description for the purpose of terrifying the Irish chiefs I cannot take upon myself to assert, but I can state upon the evidence of an original MS., that the Monks of Fenagh in the Co. of Leitrim had recourse to the most audacious fabrications to frighten the Conmaicnians (i.e., Mac Rannalls, O'Farrells etc.) to obedience, and the following story about Carbry Crom and the spirit of King Maelseachlainn I, will go far towards providing that the ecclesiastics of Clonmacnoise were not backward in inventing stories to touch the minds of Kings with an idea of the importance of their own prayers and of the advantages which Kings derived from being interred at Clonmacnoise. It is translated by Colgan from the Scholiast of Aengus.