Note 33 — INTRODUCTION

I.e. dioceses. This synod is mentioned in A.T., A.I. and the Annals of Boyle. Particulars of its Acts and of the persons present at it are given in C.S. and D.A.I. C.S. has "parish" in the singular. But this does not seem to yield good sense; for the whole extent of the kingdom of Meath could scarcely have been called a "parish" in the twelfth century. I therefore read "parishes." The singular may have been substituted for the plural at a later time, when the kingdom (or the greater part of it) included only the dioceses of Meath and Clonmacnoise, and their earlier history was forgotten. Cp. the unhistorical statement of St. Bernard about Down and Connor in Life, § 31. D.A.I. have an anomalous form (faircheadh), which may have come from either the singular (fairche) or the plural (faircheadha) in the exemplar, but more probably from the latter.