Note 104 — THE BOOK OF THE DEAN OF LISMORE.

Another name for Ireland. O’Flaherty says there were five names for the island, and quotes a scholiast of the name of Fiach, who lived a thousand years before. The names are Ere, Fodla, Banba, Fail, and Elga. Might we not add to these the much-disputed name of Scotia, which our Irish neighbours claim, yet don’t possess. Surely it is time now to perceive that the only true and satisfactory solution of the question regarding it, is that the name was applied to both countries, latterly under the distinctive appellation of Scotia Major and Scotia Minor, as the countries of the Scots. Surely Scotland was as much a Scotia as Ireland, and Ireland as much as Scotland, in so far as they were both occupied by Scottish inhabitants. This identity of race, language, and at an early period religion, is not sufficiently allowed for in discussing questions involving the several claims of Scotland and Ireland to much of what was common to both. Scotland has suffered more than Ireland from the destruction of her early archives; but is not the life of Columba, so recently given to the world under the able editorship of Dr. Reeves, in reality a Scottish work?