Notices of the drinking of usquebagh or whisky are frequent in sixteenth and seventeenth century references to Irish social habits. The statute 3 & 4 Philip and Mary, chapter vii, was passed to restrain its indiscriminate manufacture. Among earlier references Stanihurst speaks, in his Plain and Perfect Description of Ireland, of the excellence of Waterford whisky: ‘as they distil the best Aqua Vitae, so they spin the choicest rug in Ireland’ (p. 24). Campion, writing in 1571, also refers to the consumption of the same drink. The earliest extant reference to the national beverage appears to belong to the year 1405, and illustrates with admirable point and brevity the use and abuse of strong liquors. In that year ‘Richard MacRaghnaill, heir to the chieftaincy of Muinter-Eolais, quievit after drinking uisce-betha (usquebagh, literally water of life); and it was uisce-marbtha (literally water of killing) to Richard.’ Annals of Loch Cé, ii. p. 103, Hennessy's translation. See on this subject the Ulster Journal of Archaeology, vii. p. 33.