Excerpt from The Battle of Gabhra, Vol. 1: Garristown in the County of Dublin, Fought A. D. 283 If the marvellous be mixed with portions of genuine his tory in the Fenian poems, still there exists no reason for their final rejection because if we turn over the pages of the early history of any country, we find in them a leaven of the same nature equally Objectionable; it is the duty of the historian to sift and separate truth from fiction. If such fragments of the poetry of the country existed among any other people they would soon be rescued from Oblivion; but, to the shame of the Irish be it told, they have hitherto advanced but slowly in the performance of the good work. It is, indeed, to be lamented that we have not hitherto thought the Fenian poems worthy of notice as they deserve. But the time has come when the remnants Of the history of Ireland found in the poems of F ionu, Oisin, Caoilte, Fergus, and other minor bards of antiquity shall not remain in oblivion. Though Ossianic lore has been almost neglected by most writers, nevertheless it is but fair to record a few honorable and praise-worthy exceptions. The first is C. Wilson, who pub lished a small quarto volume of Ossianic poetry in 1780 and next Miss Brooke, who published, in 1786, a. Large volume which has been reprinted, in octavo, by the patriotic and enterprising Christie of Dublin, in 1816. The Ossianic poems afterwards remained unnoticed until the late Edward o'reilly and the Rev. Dr. Drummond wrote prize essays on their authenticity and in refutation of Macpherson's false assertions, which were published in the Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy (vol. Xvi., part 2) and in 1851, the latter gentleman published a volume of excellent metri cal translations Of some of our Fenian poems at his own risk, which, it is feared, has not repaid his labors. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.