that this day breatheth in Christendom. In his Decas Patritiana, a verse life of St Patrick published at Madrid in 1629, O'SullivanBeare called his reply to Ussher's censure Archicoringeromastix: A Whip for the Arch-Horned One.

O'Sullivan Beare regularly enumerated items in his written work. In the 1620s, he compiled lists of Irishmen and women living abroad; the Irish saints; Irish ecclesiastics and lawyers; a catalogue of birds animals, plants and minerals; and writers ancient and modern.

James I's ambassadors and agents at the court of Philip III paid close attention to Irish activity. This composition illustrates the tensions which existed between the different Irish factions in Spain and its dominions. The second text,

Priests of Ireland and Gentlemen gone abroad, is a composite source. It consists of a set of listscompiled for the English authorities in the 1610s and early 1620s. Both texts are preserved in a manuscript which belonged to Ussher, now kept at Trinity College Library, Dublin. James Ussher was Protestant bishop of Meath before his appointment to Armagh. The dates for the second set of lists suggest that they came to Ussher from his immediate predecessor, Christopher Hampton, who was primate of the state church in Ireland from 1613 to 1625. Ussher also acquired the text of the papal commission by which Paul V appointed David Rothe Catholic vice-primate in 1609.

The

Briefe relation, termed the Breviate in the Manuscript Catalogue by Abbott and Gwynn, was originally compiled for the benefit of the Council of State in Madrid. It reflects the consistent content of reports presented at