Note 24 — Chapter XIII

"Even to this day," says Dr. Healy, in "Ireland's Ancient Schools and Scholars," p. 77, "the original is chanted by the peasantry of the south and west in the ancestral tongue, and it is regarded as a strong shield against all dangers natural or supernatural." I, myself, however, in collecting the "Religious Songs of Connacht," have found no trace of this, and I am not sure that the learned Bishop of Clonfert, led astray by Petrie, is not here confounding it with the "Marainn Phadraig," which mysterious piece is implicitly believed to be the work of St. Patrick, and is still recited all over the west, with the belief that there is a peculiar virtue attached to it. I have even known money to have been paid for its recital in the west of Galway, as a preventive of evil. For this curious piece, which is to me at least more than half unintelligible, see my "Religious Songs of Connacht." It appears to have been founded upon an incident similar to that recorded by Muirchu Maccu Machteni, book i. chap. 26.