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AUTHOR'S PREFACE
leian Library, Oxford, for permission to photograph pages from well-known Irish MSS.; and Mr. R, J. Best for the use of his photographs of MSS.
In writing this book it has been some relief to try to lose oneself in it and to forget, in turning over the pages of the past, the dark cloud which hangs over our modern life in these sad days of the great war, sad yet noble, because of the freely offered sacrifice of life and all that life holds dear by so many of my countrymen and our heroic allies in defence of liberty.
J. A. MACCULLOCH.
Bridge of Allan, Scotland,
May, 16, 1916.
