"
In the existing literature we see two great divisions. On the one
hand the epical, a realm of the most riotous activity of thought;
on the other, the annalistic and genealogical, bald and bare to the
last degree, a mere skeleton. They represent the two great
hemispheres of the bardic mind, the latter controlling the former.
Hence the orderly sequence of the cyclic literature; hence the
strong confining banks between which the torrent of song rolls down
through those centuries in which the bardic imagination reached its
height. The consentaneity of the annals and the literature
furnishes a trustworthy guide to the general course of history,
until its guidance is barred by _a priori_ considerations of a
weightier nature, or by the statements of writers, having sources
of information not open to us. For instance, the stream of Irish
history must, for philosophical reasons, be no further traceable
than to that point at which it issues from the enchanted land of
the Tuatha De Danan. At the limit at which the gods appear, men and
history must disappear; while on the other hand, the statement of
Tiherna, that the foundation of Emain Alacha by Kimbay is the first
certain date in Irish history, renders it undesirable to attach
more historical reality of characters, adorning the ages prior to
B.C. 299, than we could to such characters as Romulus in Roman, or
Theseus in Athenian history.
I desire here to record my complete and emphatic dissent from the
opinions advanced by a writer in Hermathena on the subject of the
Ogham inscriptions, and the introduction into this country of the
art of writing.
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