Note 1 — PREFACE.

Irish potentates were then as plenty “as Munster potatoes.” “Ils se coudoyoient,” as in the salle des rois of Napoleon. Irish saints were equally numerous; but, if the scandalous chronicles of the times be worthy of credit, the social order of that day was not the better for the circumstance. While King Mac Murrogh was running away with Queen O’Rourke, wife of O’Rory, King of Breffny, who was on a pilgrimage to St. Patrick’s purgatory, his son was undergoing the operation of having those eyes put out, which had looked too tenderly on the Queen of Ossory. The gallantries of these Macs and O’s from the earliest ages to the present day, recall the answer of the French Silvester Daggerwood to his manager, who asked his line of parts, “Chacun s’en tienne au metier de ses pères; je sais que dans notre famille, nous sommes tous amoureux de père en fils.”