and wind as taking vengeance? ... for this is the language copied by all the monastic annalists, and even by the Four Masters, Franciscan friars, writing in the seventeenth century.”  The passage is improved by a “note,” in which the author mentions this as a proof that such superstitions would not have been necessarily regarded two centuries ago as inconsistent with orthodoxy.  Now, in the first place, the Catholic Church has always[137] condemned superstition of every kind.  It is true that as there are good as well as bad Christians in her fold, there are also superstitious as well as believing Christians; but the Church is not answerable for the sins of her children.  She is answerable for the doctrine which she teaches; and no one can point to any place or time in which the Church taught such superstitions.  Secondly, the writers of history are obliged to relate facts as they are.  The Franciscan fathers do this, and had they not done it carefully, and with an amount of labour which few indeed have equalled, their admirable Annals would have been utterly useless.  They do mention the pagan opinion that it was “the sun and wind that killed him [Laeghaire], because he had violated them;” but they do not say that they believed this pagan superstition, and no one could infer it who read the passage with ordinary candour.

It is probable that Oilioll Molt, who succeeded King Laeghaire, A.D. 459, lived and died a pagan.  He was slain, after a reign of twenty years, by Laeghaire’s son, Lughaidh, who reigned next.  The good king Aengus[138] died about this time.  He was the first Christian King of Munster, and is the common ancestor of the MacCarthys, O’Sullivans, O’Keeffes, and O’Callahans.  The foundation of the kingdom of Scotland by an Irish colony, is generally referred to the year 503.[139] It has already been mentioned that Cairbre Riada was the leader of an expedition thither in the reign of Conaire II.  The Irish held their ground without assistance from the mother country until this period, when the Picts obtained a decisive victory, and drove them from the country.  A new colony of the Dalriada now went out under the leadership of Loarn, Aengus, and Fergus, the sons of Erc.  They were encouraged and assisted in their undertaking by their relative Mortagh, the then King of Ireland.  It is said they took the celebrated Lia Fail to Scotland, that Fergus might be crowned thereon.  The present royal family of England have their claim to the crown through the Stuarts, who were descendants of the Irish Dalriada.  Scotland now obtained the name of Scotia, from the colony of Scots.  Hence, for some time, Ireland was designated Scotia Magna, to distinguish it from the country which so obtained, and has since preserved, the name of the old race.

Muircheartach, A.D. 504, was the first Christian King of Ireland; but he was constantly engaged in war with the Leinster men about the most unjust Boromean tribute.  He belonged to the northern race of Hy-Nial, being descended from Nial of the Nine Hostages.  On his death, the crown reverted to the southern Hy-Nials in the person of their representative, Tuathal Maelgarbh.