A list of the "family" [household] of Patrick is given immediately after, which Dr.
O'Donovan has taken great pains to verify, and with which he appears satisfied.

If the one statement is true, why should the other be false?
Mr.O'Curry, whose opinion on such subjects is admittedly worthy of the highest consideration, expresses himself strongly in favour of receiving the statements of our annalists, and thinks that both Dr.Petrie and Dr.
Lanigan are mistaken in supposing that the compilation was not effected by those to whom it has been attributed.

As to the antiquity of these laws, he observes that Cormac Mac Cullinan quotes passages from them in his Glossary, which was written not later than the ninth century, and then the language of the Seanchus[154] Mor was so ancient that it had become obsolete.

To these laws, he well observes, the language of Moore, on the MSS.

in the Royal Irish Academy, may be applied: "They were not written by a foolish people, nor for any foolish purpose;" and these were the "laws and institutions which regulated the political and social system of a people the most remarkable in Europe, from a period almost lost in the dark mazes of antiquity, down to about within two hundred years of our own time, and whose spirit and traditions influence the feelings and actions of the native Irish even to this day."[155] But we can adduce further testimony.