The Genealogies, Tribes, and Customs of Hy-Fiachrach, Commonly Called O'dowda's Country - Now First Published From the Book of Lecan, in the Library of the Royal Irish Academy, and From the Genealogical Manuscript of Duald Mac Firbis, ... #272295

Duald mac firbis closed the line of the hereditary antiquaries of Lecan, in Tirfiacra, on the May, a family whose law reports and historical collections have derived great credit to their country (many of which lye now dispersed in England and France). This last of the Firbisses was unfortunately murdered at Dunflin, in the county of Sligo, A. D. I670, and by his death our antiquities received an irreparable blow. His historical, topographical, and genealogical collections (written by his own hand) are now in the possession of a worthy nobleman, the Earl of roden, who added this to the other collections of Irish history made by his father, our late Lord Chancellor J ocelyn. Of that work M ac F irbis intended a second draught (as he intimates) with amendments and corrections, but whether he executed his design we cannot learn. As the work stands it is valuable, by preserving the descents and pointing out the posses sions of our Irish families of latter times, very accurately; but it is particu larly valuable, by rescuing from oblivion the names of districts and tribes in Ireland, antecedently to the second century since which, the Scots have gra dually imposed new names of their own, as they were enabled, from time to time, to expel the old Belgic inhabitants. It is a most curious chart of an tient topography, and vastly preferable to that given by the Alexandrian Geographer Ptolemy, who must know [have known] but little of Ireland, wherein the Romans never made a descent.