Bating the fanciful assertions of the Irish historians, Keating and O'Flaherty, which have been long since rendered nugatory, we find that the frequent descents of Fingal on the coast of Ireland, were wholly occasioned by the distress and wants of his kinsman, the king of Ulster, or of Ireland, by the following descent.

Trenmor, the great-grandfather of Fingal, had two sons; Trathal, the grandfather of Fingal; and Connor, called by the bards, Connor the Great. He was elected king of all Ireland, and was the ancestor of that Cormac who sat on the Irish throne, when Swaran, king of Norway, invaded Ireland.

The principal residence of this race of monarchs, we find, was at Te-mora in Ulster! This Te-mora, Ossian tells us, was at the foot of the hill of Mora, which rose near the borders of the heath of Moi-lena, near the mountain Cromla.

2

Before I can offer my observations on Te-mora, I find it necessary to go back to the coast of Ulster. We are often told by the royal bard, that he rushed into Carmona's bay, and into Tura's bay; thence we see frequent allusions to Cromla, Lena, and the lake of reedy Lego; all, apparently, in the neighbourhood of these two places. This account of the poet makes the Carmona of the ancients, the Pisgah whence I have discovered the land promised to my exertions by hope.

There is no difficulty whatever in ascertaining the ancient Carmona to be the modern Carmony. It stands on the hill, a little from the shore, between Carrickfergus and Belfast—which Carrickfergus, there is not the slightest doubt in my mind, was the Tura of the ancients; but of Tura more hereafter. Here commences that range of hills, which in the poems I take to have been called Lena with Cromleach, (i. e. high hill in the centre) that extend in a south-west direction; and after running as the

I would here observe, that the election of Connor to the supreme govern ment of Ireland, (which makes such a conspicuous place in one of the notes to the poems of Ossian) appears to have never been acknowledged by the native hereditary princes of that country; and that it required all the assistance of his friends of Morven, united to the exertions of his adhering subjects, to retain for himself and race, the small portion of Ulster, which the map will show you bounded on the east and west by the rivers Legou and Banu, and on the north and south by Lochneagh, and the Irish Sea. If such an election took place, it is but natural to imagine that it was dictated by the wants of some paisne prince, whose power or right was doubted by his neighbouring chieftains; and, consequently, like the later case, that called Strongbow, Earl of Pembroke, to Ireland; and ultimately vested the lordship of that excellent island in the hands of the English monarch.

2 Carmona's Bay (i. e. Bay of dark brown hills) an arm of the Sea in the neighbourhood of Selma. This powerfully supports my opinion noted in the appendix, that the white house between Belfast and Carrickfergus and on the shore below Carmona, is the Selma of Ossian.

boundary of the extensive and fertile valley of Ulster, through which flows the river Legon, (reedy Lego,) the range terminates above Lochneagh, (lake of Roes,) at, or near, a place now called Cromlin, from the ancient Cromleach!

The part of the range, however, which the bard calls Misty . Cromla, I take to be that high hill of lime-stone, which stands between Carmona and Belfast: that from three large and beautiful caves cut in the face of the rock or mountain, is now called Cavehill; and, at different seasons of the year, a place much frequented by the inhabitants of Belfast. The address to the Druid occurred to my memory on visiting two of these celebrated and beautiful caves, (the third being unapproachable ;) "Why, son of the cave of the rock," &c. I may here observe, that those caves were certainly places of shelter and worship to the early inhabitants of these countries.

In the first book of Fingal, we find Cuchullin sitting by the wall of Tura, (a castle on the coast of Ulster,) his spear leaned against the mossy rock, while the other chiefs had gone on a hunting party to Cromla, a neighbouring hill. Now as the analogy of the scenes had almost clearly expressed the Cave-hill of the moderns, to have been the Cromla of the ancients; so it is only natural to imagine, that this castle of Tura, alluded to on the coast of Ulster, is the Carrick, or by some Craig-fergus castle of our times of which, like Dundonald castle, in Ayrshire, there are no authentic records when it was built! From the celebrated hill of Cromla, Carrickfergus castle is only about four miles distant; and it is situated on a rock on the shore, in which is a spacious cave, and opposite to Scotland, consequently the most likely place to effect a landing from that country: being bounded on either side by a fine sandy beach, and in the immediate neighbourhood of Temora, the royal residence.

To know that Carrickfergus castle has no rival in antiquity on the coast of Ulster, or rather I should say, on the coast of Ireland, is an almost indubitable proof that the Tura of the ancients is the very spot now known by that name! To infer otherwise, I think from consistent analogy, would be a perversion of reason, and a mark of injustice to the manes of the royal bard.

Having thus briefly ascertained Tura, Cromla, Lena, &c. we read that the river Lubar ran between Cromla and the hill of

1

By the noun Cromleuch, the ancients seem to have understood a place of Druidical worship, which was generally performed in the most solemn, grand and imposing places. Hence I think the magnitude of the Cave-hill, with its grand and solemn scenery and silent caves, go far to affirm that it was a place sacred to the devotion of our ancestors.

Mora; at whose western foot was the royal residence, Te-mora!' From many local allusions, I am disposed to think that there cannot be a doubt as to the hill of Tardree, and Cairn-ærie, having been the Mora of the ancients.

Indeed there is no other hill of any note in the neighbourhood! Hence, on proceeding to the foot of Cairn-ærie, and Tardree, I discovered the mossy ruins of a time-worn castle of extensive dimensions, at the ancient city of Connor; which, your map will show you, is nearly in the centre of the county of Antrim. Here the beautiful lines of the classical Irishmen, Messrs. Moore and Phillips, have their full sway over the imagination.—

"Ah! dark are the halls where your ancestors revell’'d,
And mute is the harp that enliven❜d the day:

The tow'rs that they dwelt in are awfully levell'd-
The signs of their greatness are sunk in decay!

Oh, Tara! but 'twas fair to see
Thy court's assembled majesty!
All that man deems great or grand,
All that God made fair;
The holy seers, the minstrel band,
Heroes bright, and ladies bland,
Around the monarchs of the land,
Were mingled there !

Art thou the festal hall of state,
Where once the lovely and the great,

The stars of peace, the swords of honour,
Cheer'd by the ever gracious eye

Of Erin's native majesty
Glitter'd a golden galaxy,

Around thee, great O'Connor!

And did these sacred ivy walls

Once glare with gorgeous tapestry?

And did these mute and

grass-grown halls

Once ring with regal minstrelsy?

Chill is the court where the chief of the hills

Feasted the lord and the vassal,

And winter fills with its thousand rills

The pride of O'Connor's castle.2

'The house of the great King.

2 Vide the "Emerald Isle."

The many remains of antiquity in this neighbourhood, such as ruins, caves, stones, &c. render Connor almost beyond a doubt, the Temorah, Teamrah, or Tara of the ancients. It is situate about twelve miles west of Carrickfergus, and nearly in the angle formed by Lochneagh and the river Bann to the east, and a short distance from Kellswater, a tributary of the Bann. There is a tradition extant, that this was the residence of a King Connor, who left it his name: hence, I am bold to assert, that the whole scenery agrees as perfectly in every point with the description of Ossian, as the scenery around Loch Catrine does to the elegant description of Mr. Scott.

Many are the allusions which the poet makes to Connor (Temora), to cite all of which would be loss of time; but I shall here remark, from what I have discovered, that the poet and his father appear to have never penetrated into Ireland, and that their progress seems to have been no farther than the fields of battle ; which, during Fingal's life, were generally in the vicinity of Connor-in consequence of the enemy, whether of the Belgae, or of Lochlin, wishing, nay, attempting, to dethrone his young friend, the minor king, Cormac, whose wants required and occasioned the frequent descents of Fingal on Ireland; and, I infer from the poems, that immediately after he had defeated the enemies of the young king, or restored peace by treaty, he found it necessary, from his wars with the Romans, Scandinavians, &c. to return to Morven.'

I have farther to remark with respect to Connor, that when Edward Bruce assumed the sovereignty of Ireland, in 1316, he found it necessary to reduce that city, which is reported to have been very strong at the time of his invasion, and a place where he found as powerful, though not so fatal, a resistance as he did at Dundalk!-The castle of the kings was even then in ruins, a proof of their antiquity. I have often visited them, and the walls appear to be coeval with Carrickfergus castle, but only a few feet above the surface. Should any doubts be entertained as to the certainty of this castle having been the residence of some of the early potentates of this country, might we not also doubt the ruins shown at Dunscaith in the Isle of Sky, and the stone to which Cuchullin is said to have fastened his dog Luath, which few have ventured to deny ?-If one has the least foundation in truth, the other is more than equally founded. Connor was a place of such note in the days of St. Patrick, that the apostle ordered an abbey, (whose ruins are still standing) and several

1 This goes far to annul the generally received opinion, in Ireland, that Fingal was a native of that country.

other religious houses to be erected there. It has ever since been a conspicuous place in the church history of Ireland; and is, I believe, both a Catholic and Protestant bishop's see: at least, it is reported to have been the former, in the reign of the eighth Henry; and is now joined to Down, as a Protestant see, though there is but one family of the church of England resident in the parish-For so effectual were the plans of Cromwell for exterminating the Catholics, that this parish, formerly the capital seat of Catholicism in the north of Ireland, contains only a few Catholic families, and they, I understand, returned to it at the restoration; the majority being Presbyterians of the established kirk

of Scotland.

Having thus briefly noted Connor, and ascertained it to be the celebrated Te-mora, I venture to quote a few passages from the poems, that tend to elucidate and confirm the other places, which I have mentioned, the identical ones that I hold them out to be.

As we proceed in the first book of Fingal, we find many beautiful allusions made to Cromla, as being in the immediate neighbourhood of Lena, the scene of action of that poem. And from the striking appearance of its romantic scenery, and the frequency of mists on its summit, (mentioned by Ossian,) at particular seasons of the year, we may safely conjecture that it held a conspi cuous place in the mind of the illustrious poet, which we find to have been fondly stored with all that is grand in nature, and sublime in thought.

To know that Cromla is on the range of hills called Lena, and make one part ascertain the other, we have only to look at the Poet's own description: «Unequal bursts the song of battle. Rocky Cromla echoes round. On Lena's dusky heath they stand like mist that shades the hills of autumn, when broken and dark it settles high and lifts its head to heaven.' Here the most incredulous of my system will see that the warriors on Lena's dusky heath shouted so loud in battle, that Cromla echoed around; a proof at least of its vicinity to the heath of Lena.

Nathos, nephew of Cuchullin, tells his Darthula, " I remember thy words on Etha when my sails began to rise; when I spread them towards Ullin (Ulster ;) towards the mossy wall of Tura, (Carrickfergus)." Again he says, "I came to Tura's bay; but the halls of Tura were silent!"

The many allusions made to Tura only tend to place beyond doubts, the natural conjecture that one is apt to conceive on looking at the corresponding positions of Morven and of Tura, and prove to us that it is the very spot known as Carrickfergus. Duchomar!

'Black-well-made man.