Of the Site, Building and Destruction of the Palace of Eimhain or Eamania.

THE kings of Ulster, of the line of Ir, originally held their regal courts in the palace of Eamhain, or Evan Macha, situated about two miles westward of Druimsailech, on which the city of Armagh stands. St. Fiech, who wrote in the sixth century, makes express mention of this palace which some of the Irish historians say was erected A.M. 3603, by Cimbaoth, king of Ireland; others, in 3560, by Macha, his wife.

The ruins of Evan Macha were visible in O'Flaherty's day, and are spoken of by Colgan, and by Camden, who corrupts the name into Owen Maugh. The palace was sometimes denominated Teagh na Heamnha - the house of Eamhain. Adjoining to it was another, named Teagh na Craobh Ruadh, or the house of the red branch. Here the knights or champions of the red branch, (Curaidhe na Craobh Ruadh,) who were celebrated for military prowess, deposited their arms, standards and trophies of victory. A kind of hospital styled Bron Bhearg, or "the soldier’s sorrow," was annexed to the building, where sick or wounded knights were attended until they convalescent.

The site of these ancient edifices can be nearly ascertained at this present hour. There is a townland, near the Navan hill, westward of Armagh, which is yet denominated Creeve Roe, a name which, in English letters, expresses the very sound designated in the Irish characters, by the word Craobh Ruadh, "the red branch." The uniform tradition of the country; assigns this district of Creeve Roe as the place where the regal palace stood. There is, in an adjoining townland called Trea, a mound which, in form, resembles this figure, [ , and is universally denominated the king's stables. Navan-hill overlooks the lands of Craobh Ruadh. Around this hill, betwixt the base and the summit, there is an elliptical fosse and moat, including eleven acres, three roods and thirty-six perches, by which two smaller circular mounds or forts (one on the top) and the other on the side of the hill) are environed. These had probably been formed to protect the royal residence.

As the palace of Craobh Ruadh (Creeve Roe) was situated in the vicinity of Armagh, we subjoin the following account of its destruction, compiled. from the works of various writers on Irish Historical affairs.

In the year of Christ 315, Colla Uais, the grandson of Cairbre Liffeachair, was proclaimed monarch of Ireland. This prince, aided by his two brothers, Colla Mean and Colla Da Crioch, had rebelled against his uncle, King Fiachadh Streabhthuine, and, having overthrown and slain him in battle, had usurped his crown. In the year 319, Muireadhach Tireach, the son of the deceased sovereign, collected a considerable force, with which he assailed Colla Uais, whom he totally routed arid drove from the kingdom.

The fugitive prince, and his two brothers, fled to Scotland, by whose monarch they were hospitably received. Here they continued, in total inaction, for the space of three years, with three hundred soldiers the remnant of their ruined army..

The Collas were princes of a most daring and enterprising spirit of boundless ambition, and altogether fearless of death. They were anxious to transmit the crown of Erin to their posterity, and placed the most implicit reliance on a prophecy then current, which predicted, that if they should be slain by the king of Ireland, the throne would be transferred to their lineal descendants, and remain in their possession for ever.

Tired of inaction, which ill suited their restless disposition, and unable to raise troops for the invasion of Ireland, these adventurous chiefs determined to surrender themselves to their lawful sovereign, Muireadhach, under an impression that he would avenge the murder of his father, by putting them to instantaneous death, and that the crown of Ireland, would, there-fore, in fulfilment of the prediction, be transferred to their children, and vested in their family from generation to generation.

They found the king at Tara, to whom they surrendered themselves, stating that struck with remorse and horror, at the atrocious acts of treason, rebellion and murder, which they had perpetrated, they had come to receive the punishment due to their crimes.

The king, who was as well aware of the prediction as the Collas, and who deemed the welfare arid honour of his children and his posterity, to be more exalted. and noble objects ambition, than the gratification of personal revenge, not only pardoned the offence's of his rebellious kinsmen, but settled a princely revenue upon them, and gave them a command in his armies -"Clemency," said he, is the brightest jewel in the crown of princes. I forgive your crimes, leaving revenge to the immortal Gods, and to the emotions of remorse which agitate your souls. The Collas, after this event, conducted themselves with zeal and fidelity, the posts of honour which the king had assigned them. But Muireadhach, in order to give employment to their active spirits, and to avenge the wrongs of their Common relation, Cormac, son of Art, whom the king of Eamhain, had insulted by burning his beard, determined to send them at the head of an army to ravage and conquer Ulster. "The lands", said he, "of that kingdom will form a territory and a dependence for you and- your posterity."

Fired with ambition, and stimulated to the enterprise by the king of Ireland, the Collas entered Ulster at the head of a formidable army. They were joined by some of the nobility of the invaded country, and 7000 troops, who were disaffected to the reigning monarch, Feargus Fodha.

This valiant prince, notwithstanding the defection of his nobility, determined to give battle to the Collas. He had collected an army at Carn Eochaidh Leathdhearg, in Fearmuighe,. a part of the present county of Monaghan. To this point, the three brothers, at the-head of the auxiliary troops and the their own army, immediately marched, and in a desperate and sanguinary action, defeated the king of Ulster.

Feargus, undaunted by defeat, rallied his broken forces, and returned seven times to the conflict, in as many successive days. In the last battle, his army was finally and completely routed and the king himself slain.

The conquerors now marched against the regal palace of Eamhain, - which they pillaged and set on fire The ruined fabric was not totally consumed, but it never again regained its former magnificence, and was no longer the residence of the kings of Ulster.

After this decisive victory, the Collas seized upon a tract of territory, which they denominated Orgial, or Orgiella Daire, a Hy Niellian prince, who granted the district of Na Fearta, and 'Druimsailech-hill, to St. Patrick, was a -lineal descendant of Colla Da Crioch. Irish genealogists state, 'that. the Earl of Antrim, and, indeed, all the Mac Donels of Ireland and Scotland, are sprung from Colla Huais. From Colla Da Crioch, are descended the Mac Mahons, of Ulster-the Macguires; of Fermanagh the O’Hanlons, or O’Hanluans, of Oirther, &c. Some moderns speak contemptuously of the genealogies deduced by Irish authors, from the remnant of ancient historic materials, which has escaped the ravages of war and of time. Yet in former periods, the claim of the Hibernian nobility to great antiquity, seems to have been generally admitted. James Stuart, the first of England and sixth of Scotland, asserts a peculiar right to the crown Ireland, on account of his having been the lineal descendant of her ancient monarchs In a speech which he delivered in council, at Whitehall, on the 24th of April, 1613, he says,

"There is a double cause why I should be careful of the welfare of that people, (the Irish,) first as king of England, by reason of the long possession the crown of England hath had of that land, and also as king of Scotland, for the ancient kings of Scotland are descended of the kings of Ireland, &'c. In accordance with this declaration of the British monarch, the Irish genealogists admit him to have been a descendant of Conary, by origin an Irishman, as well as of Kineth, the leader of the kindred of Fergus. Slatyr, an

Englishman, who, in the reign of James I. wrote a poem called Palai Albion, derives the pedigree of this monarch from Ireland - a proof that such a pedigree was then deemed honourable. He writes thus

"At quandam Arctoo Scotico Rex noster ab orbe

Nec minus. occiduis perhibent Scotis ortus Hibernis

Qui Britonum parent sceptris.

The present royal family of England may be traced through James I. to Kineth or Kenneth Mac Alpine, as by the following pedigree is manifest. Kineth II. began to reign AD 843 Constantine II. in 868 Donald IV. in 904 Malcom I. in 955 Kineth III. in 982 Malcom II. in 1006 Beatrix - Donchad or Duncan, in 1034 - Malcom III. in 1057 - David I in 1124 - Henry, Earl of Huntingdon, Prince of Scotland, and son to David - David, Earl of Huntingdon, Henry's son - Robert de Bruce Earl of Carrick and Lord of Annandale, David's Grandson - Robert Bruce I. in 1306. Margery Bruce, Robert's daughter Robert Stuart II. Margery's son, in 1307 Robert Stuart III. in 1390 - James Stuart I. in l423 - James Stuart II. in 1437-James Stuart III in 1460

James Stuart IV in 1489 - James Stuart V. in 1514 - Mary Stuart, in 1544 - James Stuart VI. of Scotland and first of England, in 1567 - Elizabeth, James's daughter - Sophia, his granddaughter - George Guelph I. his great grandson, in 1714 - George Guelph II. 1724 -Frederick Guelph - George Guelph III. in 1760. To the same source not only the kings of Sardinia France, Spain, &c. But almost every other royal family in Europe, may be traced through their intermarriages with those of England and Scotland. Kineth himself, as explicitly stated by the famous Scottish historian, Buchannan, was a lineal descendant of Fergus an Irish prince whom he styles the first King of Scotland Kineth was also a descendant of Conary, an Irish prince of the Hi-Nial blood, and the chief of that clan, whose predecessors had made a descent into North Britain, under the sons of Erc. Giraldus Cambrensis intimates that the Scots, who came from Ireland, ruled North Britain for a period of 215 years.

That the Irish Scots carried their arms into various parts of Great Britain, is beyond all question. They even made head, in that country, against the Roman legions, and soon after followed them into the continent. The venerable Bede says, " Britain received, after the Picts and the Britons, a third nation, that of the Scots, into the country of the Picts. These Scots came from Ireland, under their leader, Reuda, and either amicably or forcibly appropriated to themselves those territories which they possess; from hence, it appears they are called Dalreudini : for Dal signifies a part" &c. And again, " This (Ireland) is properly the country of the Scots, who, migrating from thence, added a third nation to the Britons and Picts, in Britain." The Scottish writer, Johannes Major, speaks thus-"It is rendered indubitable by manifold proof, that we derive our origin from the Irish." Eumenes, the rhetorician, who flourished in the third century, speaks of the Britons as a "rude nation, accustomed to contend with the Picts and the Hibernians. Nennius says that "the Scots came from Spain to Ireland." He adds "These Scots from the West, and Picts from the north, fought with unanimity together against the Britons." The learned Scottish historian, Buchannan, candidly states, that " all the inhabitants of Ireland were first called Scots, as Orosius shews and our annals relate that the Scots passed more than once from Ireland into Albion - first under Fergusius tie son of Ferchard, their commander," &c &c. "Afterwards in the reign of Fergusius II. great aids of Irish Scots were sent hither, and quartered in Galloway," &c Hence, he adds sprang the distinction of "Irish Scots and Albanian Scots." Again, he affirms that "when the Scots of Britain chose to call themselves Albani, their neighbours denominated them Scoti, by which name their original is declared to be from the Hibernians.