“I shall endeavor to arrange these evidences in consecutive order.

“It is of importance to prove that this cumdach, or reliquary, has been from time immemorial popularly known by the name of Domnach, or, as it is pronounced, Donagh, a word derived from the Latin Dominicus.  This fact is proved by a recent popular tale of very great power, by Mr. Carleton, called the ‘Donagh,’ in which the superstitious uses to which this reliquary has been long applied, are ably exhibited, and made subservient to the interests of the story.  It is also particularly described under this name by the Rev. John Groyes in his account of the parish of Errigal-Keeroch in the third volume of Shaw Mason’s Parochial Survey, page 163, though, as the writer states, it was not actually preserved in that parish.

“2.  The inscriptions on the external case leave no doubt that the Domnach belonged to the monastery of Clones, or see of Clogher.  The John O’Karbri, the Comharb, or successor of St. Tighernach, recorded, in one of those inscriptions as the person at whose cost, or by whose permission, the outer ornamental case was made, was, according to the Annals of the Pour Masters, Abbot of Clones, and died in the year 1353.  He is properly called in that inscription Comorbanus, or successor of Tighernach, who was the first Abbot and Bishop of the Church of Clones, to which place, after the death of St. Mac-Carthen, in the year 506, he removed the see of Clogher, having erected a new church, which he dedicated to the apostles Peter and Paul.  St. Tighernach, according to all our ancient authorities, died in the year 548.

“3.  It appears from a fragment of an ancient life of St. Mac-Carthen, preserved by Colgan, that a remarkable reliquary was given by St Patrick to that saint when he placed him over the see of Clogher.

“’Et addidit, [Patricius] Accipo, inquit, baculum itineris mei, quo ego membra mea sustento et scrinium in quo de sanctorum Apostolorum reliquiis, et de sanctae Mariae capillis, et sancta Grace Domini, et sepulchro ejus, et aliis reliquiis sanctis continentur.  Quibus dictis dimisit cum osculo pacis paterna fultum benedictione.’—­Colgan, Vit.  S. Macaerthenni (24 Mart.) Acta SS. p. 738.

“From this passage we learn one great-cause of the sanctity in which this reliquary was held, and of the uses of the several recesses for reliques which it presents.  It also explains the historical rilievo on the top—­the figure of St. Patrick presenting the Domnach to St. Mac-Carthen.

“4.  In Jocelyn’s Life of St. Patrick (cap. 143) we have also a notice to the same effect, but in which the Domnach is called a Chrismatorium, and the relics are not specified—­in all probability because they were not then appended to it.

“In these authorities there is evidently much appearance of the Monkish frauds of the middle ages; but still they are evidences of the tradition of the country that such a gift had been made by Patrick to Mac-Carthen.  And as we advance higher in chronological authorities, we find the notice of this gift stripped of much of its acquired garb of fiction, and related with more of the simplicity of truth.