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with America, and was severely wounded at the battle of New Orleans. From 1823 to 1830 he was Commander-in-chief in Jamaica; three years afterwards he was sent to Bombay, and appointed to lead the forces intended for Scinde. The army entered Cabul in May 1839, and on 21st July invested the fortress of Ghuznee, garrisoned by 500 Afghans, and deemed impregnable. After two days' desperate struggle, however, the gates were blown in and the place captured. The fall of Ghuznee terminated the war for a time. Marshman, in his History of India, writes : " There can, of course, be no wish in any quarter to deny that he commanded the forces of the Queen and the Company on more than one occasion when brilliant victories were achieved ; but it cannot be concealed that no commander of modern times has been more severely criticized, and that the memorable victory of Ghuz- nee did not obtain for Lord Keane that unqualified approbation which conquests of equal magnitude usually procure for the General Commander-in-chief. We find him much censured for the hau- teur with which he treated the Ameers of Scinde, and there are not wanting many persons who attribute the fatal difficul- ties into which those unfortunate princes plunged themselves to the open suspicion and irritating manner with which they were treated about this period." '^ He was rewarded with a peerage and a pen- sion of .£2,000 a year. Baron Keane died 26th August 1844, aged about 63. ? 39 169 Keating, Geoffrey, D.D., a distin- guished Irish historian, was born about 1 570, at Surges or Tubbrid, near Clogheen, in the County of Tipperary, where, we are told, his family lived in 'affluent circum- stances. He went to school at an early age, and at sixteen was sent to a foreign college (in all possibility Salamanca) to complete his studif and qualify himself for the priesthood. He returned to Ireland in 1610, after twenty-four years' residence abroad, and was appointed curate to the Eev. Eugene Duhy in his native parish. His fame as a preacher soon extended ; and the building of a new church at Tubbrid engaged his care. About this period he produced some religious works, and con- ceived the idea of collecting materials and writing an Irish history. In one of the seasons of Catholic persecution which then occasionally swept over Ireland, when laws, always in force, were attempted to be car- ried out, he was obliged to secrete himself for many years in the fastnesses of the Glen of Aherlow, and thus found leisure for the completion of his great work. 270
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According to one account, the Uniformity Act was put in force specially against him, for having dared to protest against out- rages perpetrated upon some of his flock by a neighbouring magnate. O'Curry, speaking of Keating's History of Ireland, which was written in Irish, says: "This book is written in the modified Gaedhlic of Keating's own time ; and although he has used but little discretion in his selec- tions from old records, and has almost entirely neglected any critical examination of his authorities, stiU his book is a valua- ble one, and not at all in my opinion the despicable production that it is often igno- rantly said to be. . . It would be more becoming those who have drawn largely, and often exclusively, on the writings of these two eminent men [Colgan and Keat- ing], and who will continue to draw on them, to endeavour to imitate their devoted industry and scholarship, than to attempt to elevate themselves to a higher position of litei-ary fame by a display of critical pedantry and what they suppose to be independence of opinion, in scoffing at the presumed creduKty of those whose labours have laid in modern times the very ground- work of Irish history." Keating's History extends from the earliest times to the Anglo-Norman invasion. It is specially valuable as containing numerous refer- ences to MSS. no longer in existence. Of Dr. Keating's later life or death no record remains, except an inscription on the ruins of the old church at Tubbrid : " Orate pro animabus Eev. Psetria Eugenii Duhuy, Vicarii de Tubrid, et D. Doctoris Keating, hujuscesac elli fundatorum nee non et pro omnibus aliis, tarn sacerdotibus quam laicis, cuj us corpora in eodem jacent. A.D. 1644." His Foras Feasa ar Eirinn was first trans- lated into English and printed in 1723. References to some of the numerous trans- lations will be found in Notes and Queries, 2nd Series, and the following remarks on the different editions of the work were made by Dr. Todd, in his Wars of the Oaedhil with the Gaell: " The new trans- lation of Keating's History of Ireland, lately published at New York (Haverty, 1857) by Mr. John O'Mahony, largely indebted to O'Donovan's notes upon the Four Masters, . . is a great improvement upon the ignorant and dishonest one published by Mr. Dermid O'Connor more than a century ago (West- minster, 1 726, fol.) which has so unjustly lowered, in public estimation, the character of Keating as a historian ; but O'Mahony's translation has been taken from a very imperfect text, and has evidently been ex- ecuted, as he himself confesses, in gi'eat
