Note 8 — Chapter XV

"Is sí mo cubhus gan col 's nocha conagar m' eiliughadh Ferr écc ind Eirind cen ail Ina sir beatha ind Aipuin."

For the whole of this poem, in the form of a dialogue between Cormac and Columcille, see p. 264 of Reeves' "Adamnan." It is very hard to say how much or how little of these poems is really Columcille's. Colgan was inclined to think them genuine. Of course, as we now have them, the language is greatly modernised; but I am inclined to agree with Dr. Healy, who judges them rather from internal than from linguistic evidence; and while granting, of course, that they have been retouched by later bards, adds, "but in our opinion they represent substantially poems that were really written by the saint. They breathe his pious spirit, his ardent love for nature, and his undying affection for his native land. Although retouched, perhaps, by a later hand, they savour so strongly of the true Columbian spirit that we are disposed to reckon them amongst the genuine compositions of the saint." ("Ireland's Schools and Scholars," p. 329.) "The older pieces here preserved," says Dr. Robert Atkinson in his preface to the contents of the facsimile of the Book of Leinster, "and of whose genuineness and authenticity there seems no room for doubt, ex. gr., the Poems of Colum Cille, bear with them the marks of the action of successive transcribers, whose desire to render them intelligible has obscured the linguistic proofs of their age."