vol. 1, p. 4

With such a birth did she ennoble you and such outstanding ancestors did she grant you that you could demand no more in that regard than could the noblest of men however fortunate in his birth. To trace the line further back, the head of your family, of which you are no slight adornment, is properly called Donghaile, who [ ] and unbreakable[ ] of historians [ ] relates [ ] grandson of Eugenius Magnus by his son [M?] and great grandson of the most powerful [R?] Neill, founder of the [ ] ONeill [ ]. From this tribe most glorious at home and at war, by land and by sea, your [ ] grew forth, and from so tall a tree so handsome a branch was born, and in turn bore [ ] and strong fortifications. Of what quality, I pray, and what splendid adornments of this tribe were the choicest [ ] flowers which this branch produced? [What of] S[] Ernanus son of Colman to whom [ ]? What sort and how [ ] of sanctity [was] Sydus, the glorious confessor and Fintan [ ] from the seed of [Murechectach?] to whom [your] Meredachus [ ]? How bright, finally, were those two lights S. Domnogus son of Saranus great grandson of the same Murdachus of Tighernachi and the very glorious [fourth?] of the ONeill tribe, Mura grandson of Muredachus of Feradachus? These and many other [ ] flowers your stock, as if a flourishing [ ] of that tree, [awoke], from which odours of wondrous sanctity exhale throughout all Ireland. Nor were there lacking from that stock the most effective defences of that same royal house and [strong] fighters, who assisted it, in planning and [equally] with hand and foot. [You were born into ] this Tyronian and most excellent family of the ONeills, which [considered itself] never more fortunate than in [this] flower [ ] [ ] of whom by deed and in battle [often] beyond Jordan [ ] so [ ] that it should have nothing to pray for but that in the place where it was founded [by those ?] it should stand unyielded. By these arts and ancient traditions by hospitality [ ] and inexhaustible liberality and incredible [ ] your forebears acquired [ ] eternity and [right of the name]. The name [ ] Donghaile, like Jupiter sending the eagle to the Romans as worthy of him, they passed down [ ] and [ ] of that same Mars under whom they were born [ ] sign.
Of this [ ] house [ ] by the congeneric thunderbolts of Mars [ ] the royal [ ] of the ONeills [ ] usurp, which appropriately [ ] about it:
One house undertook the power and burden of the city
noble hands took up the promised weapons;
The generous soldiery sallied from the same camp,
any one of whom was fit to lead.
[Ovid Fasti II xiii 197-200]