1. “In Europe the ancient races were all, according to Schaafhausen, ‘lower in the scale than the rudest living savages,’ they must therefore have differed to a certain extent from any existing race.”—Darwin’s Descent of Man, chap. vii. p. 281.
2. “There is no proof of any migration of Asiatics into Europe west of the basin of the Dnieper down to the time of Attila.”—Huxley.
3. Adamnan refers to the same four peoples.
4. “The first great movements of the European population of which there is any conclusive evidence are that series of Gaulish invasions of the east and south which ultimately extended from North Italy to Galatia in Asia Minor.”—Huxley.
5. “Two centuries after Cæsar’s conquest the Celtic tongue had all but disappeared from Gaul, still that language did not perish without leaving behind it slight but yet distinct traces.”—A. Brachet.
6. Census, 1891.
7. The number in Scotland who could speak Gaelic in 1901 was 230,806, and who could speak Gaelic only, 28,106. The census of 1891 gave 43,738 speaking Gaelic only, and 38,192 speaking Irish only.
8. Races of Europe.
9. Sir William Jones.
10. Professor Zimmer, among others, believes that they were one and the same person.
11. Dr. Whitley Stokes thinks this sojourn took place between his first missionary advent to Ireland in 397 and his second in 432.
12. For examples, see Chap. XV.
13. Benen, name of Saint’s follower, St. Benignus.
14. Version by Whitley Stokes in his Goidelica.
15. The Book of Kells is held by the more competent authorities to belong to the end of the seventh century.
16. Ward or Vardaus, author of Acta Sancti Rumoldi.
17. There are various Kilbrides in Scotland, several even in Lorn, but this one is in the island of Seil, near Easdale.
18. Professor Mackinnon, in Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Inverness, vol. xi.
19. See p. 110.
20. Fiann, gen. Feinne, means the band, troop; the plural Fianna, the troops or the soldiers.—Dr. Ludwig Stern.
21. Said to be so named from his white head.—Dr. Macbain. Finn, ancient form.
22. The age of the oldest existing Ossianic poems, according to Dr. Ludwig Stern, is the eleventh and twelfth centuries, though a few of them may be more venerable.
23. Really great-grandson.
24. Finntraigh.
25. Dr. Skene has shown, Celtic Scotland, vol. iii. p. 459, that another O’Duibhne is in question.
26. Iceland, first settled by the Irish in 795, perhaps sixty-five years earlier than the Norse. According to M. Letronne, 860 is the date of the arrival of the latter.
27. The belief was that Myrddin was persecuted by Rhydderch Hael at the instance of Yscolan.
28. Stephens has here, “For having hindered school instruction,” wrongly translated, we believe.
29. “I don’t believe that Goidelic was extinct in Wales till the seventh century; the bulk of the people of the north and the south of Wales are in point of race to this day probably more Goidelic than Brythonic. The Ordovices of Mid Wales were the Brythons of the west, and hardly any others in Wales.”—Prof. Rhys.
30. He collected Breton ballads and folk-lore songs, added to them, revised and altered, and published the collection as authentic.
31. Bran means crow in Breton dialect.
32. The late Mr. Alexander Mackenzie has offered other suggestions. See Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Inverness, Vol. XXII. pp. 43–49.
33. There is a spirited translation also by Mark Napier, Esq., in his Life of Montrose.
34. D. Campbell, in his Language, Poetry, and Music of the Highland Clans, says that Mr. James Munro was preparing his poems for publication with a memoir. This projected book has never appeared.
35. Preserved in the Books of Ballymote and Lecain and MS. I. of the Scottish collection.
36. “This was no work to commend him to the powers that were, and he appears to have been cast into prison, for, in a touching note at page 64 of the last edition of his Grammar, he asks his readers’ pardon for confounding an example of the imperative with the potential mood, which he was caused to do ‘by the great bother of the brawling company that is round about me in this prison.’ What became of him ultimately I do not know.”—Dr. Douglas Hyde, Literary History of Ireland, pp. 599, 600.
37. O’Donovan’s, 1847, published since Reid wrote, is the best Irish Grammar.
38. Of course Cormac’s Glossary is the earliest, but does not count among printed ones, because only in MS.
39. Finn Mac Gormann, Bishop of Kildare, most probably.
40. Second stanza he printed for first time.