PREFACE.

The extreme improbability of this music being borrowed by the ancient Irish from a country that has no national music of its own (with the exception of Wales) is quite obvious. Their devoted attachment to their own music, the praise it received from other countries, their ignorance of the English language, and their deep-seated dislike of their invaders were effective barriers original: "effectual bars" against any such plagiarism or adoption.

The melody of A’ choigríoch má bhíonn tú original: "Ad ccoigreac ma bin tu", or If to a Foreign Clime You Go (No. 1), which was obtained in County Mayo, we have reason to believe is the oldest one still in existence. It was sung by only one person who was very old; although many people were present, few knew it even by name, yet they all appeared greatly delighted with the composition.

To list all those melodies that speak to the heart and harmonize with our finest feelings would make this preface unacceptably long. It should be noted, however, that several of the melodies in the following collection were not taken from the Irish harp, but from singers original: "songsters"; therefore, as they currently appear, they are not always perfectly suited to that instrument.

We cannot conclude without seriously urging gentlemen in the southern parts of Ireland to follow the example of the Belfast Society by promoting similar gatherings of harpers in their own provinces. It is a debt that every person owes to their country to search for and preserve original: "perpetuate" the records of the past, to oppose as far as possible the destructive damage of time, and to make permanent the vanishing works original: "fleeting productions" of every kind of genius. In this case, these works come from an era so ancient that it is difficult for us to determine their exact place in history. The reverence in which Irish music—and every remnant of Irish antiquity—was held by our ancestors, and the respect it has received for so many centuries from foreign nations, seems well-suited to inspire similar feelings in their descendants. Shall we allow them to perish in our hands at the end of what might be the last century in which even a single new ray of light can be found amidst the darkness original: "gloom" that time wraps around its earliest and often most interesting works? By paying them proper attention, we do not merely satisfy a natural feeling of national pride; we are tracing the progress of the human mind and attempting to recover a page in the history of humanity.