I have gone into this matter of the Irish Alphabet and Catechism of 1571 somewhat at length, because I am not aware that it has ever yet received detailed attention. The quotations I have given from the preface are from an anonymous manuscript translation inserted in the British Museum copy.
O'Kearney's Irish Alphabet and Catechism is so rare that only three copies are known to exist: one being in the British Museum, one in the Bodleian Library, and one in the library of Lincoln Cathedral. The fount of types from which it was printed was not quite correct; for instance, the small Roman “a” is used, and an “H” is introduced, a letter foreign to the Gaelic alphabet.
During the seventeenth century, and even later, most of the Irish books were sent to be printed on the continent or in England. Several books by Irish authors, chiefly catechisms, works on the language, and dictionaries, bear the names of Louvain, Antwerp, Rome or Paris, such as the Catechism of Bonaventure Hussey, printed at Louvain in 1608, and reprinted at Antwerp in 1611 and 1618.
[CHAPTER XIV
BOOK BINDINGS]
A book as we know it is usually contained in a case or cover intended primarily for its protection. The fastening together of the different sections of the book, and the providing it with a cover, and, incidentally, the decoration of that cover, come under the head of bookbinding, or bibliopegy, as the learned call it. The process of binding consists of two parts: first, the arrangement of the leaves and sections in proper order, their preparation for sewing by beating or pressing, the stitching of them together, and the fastening of them into the cover. This is called “forwarding.” The other half of the work is the lettering and decoration of the cover, and is called “finishing.” With the decoration of the cover only can we concern ourselves here.
The art of binding books is far older than the art of printing. The first known attempt to provide a cover by way of protection for a document was made by the workman who devised a clay case for the clay tablet-books of Babylonia, but this is as far from our notion of bookbinding as the tablets themselves are from our notion of books. Nor do the Roman bindings, which consisted of coloured parchment wrappers, come much nearer the modern conception. The ivory cases of the double-folding wax tablets or diptychs, too, of the second and third centuries, A.D., are also outside the pale, strictly speaking, but they deserve mention on account of the beautiful carving with which they are decorated, and on which some of the finest Byzantine art was expended.
One of the earliest bookbinders or book-cover decorators whose name has come down to us was Dagæus, an Irish monk, and a clever worker in metals. Among the many beautiful objects in metal wrought in the old Irish monasteries were skilfully designed covers and clasps for the books which were so highly prized in the “Isle of Saints.” Nor were covers alone deemed sufficient protection from wear and tear. Satchels, or polaires, such as that mentioned in Adamnan's story of the miraculous preservation of St Columba's Hymn-book, were in common use for conveying books from place to place. Very few specimens now remain, but there is one at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, containing an Irish missal, and another, which is preserved at Trinity College, Dublin, together with the Book of Armagh, to which it belongs, is thus described by the Rev. T. K. Abbott, in the Book of Trinity College:—
“An interesting object connected with the Book of Armagh is its leather satchel, finely embossed with figures of animals and interlaced work. It is formed of a single piece of leather, 36 in. long and 12½ broad, folded so as to make a flat-sided pouch, 12 in. high, 12¾ broad, and 2¼ deep. Part of it is doubled over to make a flap, in which are eight brass-bound slits, corresponding to as many brass loops projecting from the case, in which ran two rods, meeting in the middle, where they were secured by a lock. In early times, in Irish monastic libraries, books were kept in such satchels, which were suspended by straps from hooks in the wall. Thus it is related in an old legend that ‘on the night of Longaradh's death all the book-satchels in Ireland fell down.’”
In Ireland, too, specially valuable volumes were enclosed in a book-shrine, or cumhdach; and although, like the satchels, these cumhdachs are not bindings in the proper sense of the word, yet since they were intended for the same purpose as bindings, that is, the protection of the book, it will not be out of place to speak of them here.
The use of bookshrines in Ireland was very possibly the survival of an early custom of the primitive Church. It seems to have been applied chiefly, if not always, to books too precious or sacred to be read. We are told that a Psalter belonging to the O'Donels was fastened up in a case that was not to be opened; and were it ever unclosed, deaths and disasters would ensue to the clan. If borne by a priest of unblemished character thrice round their troops before a battle, it was believed to have the power of granting them victory, provided their cause were a righteous one.