Note 202 — Chapter V · IRELAND.

In the following pages it is proposed to follow the popular and pronounceable spelling of Irish proper names. One half of the difficulty of following the Irish annals is the unfamiliar and uncouth mode in which proper names are spelt, and which we learn, from Eugene O'Curry's lectures, never represents the mode in which they are pronounced. In a learned work intended for Irish scholars, like the 'Annals of the Four Masters,' the scientific mode of spelling is, of course, the only one that could be adopted, but in such a work as this it would be only useless and prejudicial pedantry.