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. TO THE READER.
THE Council Books of the Corporation of .Cork are undoubtedly the most . valuable records we possess relating to the Civil History of the City, during the period they embrace. They are the proceedings of the munici- pal body, faithfully recorded as the events took plac(', and attested by thoir' signatures. In very early times, the Annalists tell us that the City was subject t;o. frequent invasions, pestilences and devastations by fire and sword. After- wards, the Ostmen step in and play a conspicuous part, and it is doubtless to the enterprise and commercial spirit of this people that we owe our: present City by the river-aide, and most probably inherit our taste for- trade. In treating of the City of Cork in these days it would be no diffi- cult taSk ~ interweave the narratives of those writers, and dress them up in the gay attire of fiction. But the age of Romance, when dealing with History, has passed away, and the time is when everything of a mer& traditional nature, however attractive, yet unauthenticated, is received with a feeling of- distrust, so that he who would write history must be proof against all prejudice, careful to suppress nothing distasteful to him, or-
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