St Finnian of Clonard died, according to the Annals of Ulster, in 549. With the possible exception of the sixth, seventh and eighth century annal entries and of the Catalogus Sanctorum all the evidence for a study of his work dates from or after the ninth century. It is however possible to say with reasonable assurance what traditions of his life were accepted about three hundred years after his death, and to trace the development of his cult from the late eighth century onwards.

St Finnian's Irish Life gives the most primitive account now extant of his career. All manuscripts go back ultimately to the same original, which was compiled by a Leinsterman writing in Leinster, almost certainly a monk of one of Finnian's foundations, possibly Clonard, who drew on both oral and written traditions for his material. The Life is an unsophisticated collection of miracle stories, combined with extravagant claims concerning the spiritual power and prestige of the saint, and giving full particulars, including a considerable amount of accurate information on local topography, of the churches which Finnian is reputed to have founded.

The tide of Irish immigration to the United States, which reached its crest during and following the famine years of the eighteen-forties, was second only to that of the Germans in the nineteenth century. Consequently, the Irish immigrants who arrived by the hundreds of thousands and the succeeding generations of Irish-Americans became one of the most important national groups in the American population, at the same time maintaining a keen interest in their native land.

This handlist of the voters of Maryborough Corporation in 1760 is taken from a notebook which forms part of the Drogheda MSS in the National Library of Ireland. There are three items of interest in the notebook; in the first place, a short diary of events within the borough from 1 March 1738/9 to 29 September 1754; secondly, a rough alphabetical list of the freemen and burgesses of the borough, which was kept up to date by additions and corrections to the year 1759; thirdly, an amended list, brought up to date and dated 1760. It is this last item which is printed here. The notebook apparently found its way into the Drogheda family papers sometime after 1765, when Charles Moore, sixth earl of Drogheda, was appointed governor of Maryborough, an office which had long been vacant; in 1773 he was described as having lately got possession’ of the borough.