IN THE HARLEIAN LIBRARY.
A MS. volume (No. 5280) containing twenty-one Gaelic or Irish treatises, of which Mr Astle has given some account. One of these treats of the Irish militia, under Fion Maccumhail, in the reign of Cormac-MacAirt, king of Ireland, and of the course of probation or exercise which each soldier was to go through before his admission therein. Mr Astle has given a fac simile of the writing, being the thirteenth specimen of Plate xxii.
IN THE BODLEIAN LIBRARY, OXFORD.
An old Irish MS. on parchment, containing, among other tracts, An account of the Conquest of Britain by the Romans:—Of the Saxon Conquest and their Heptarchy:—An account of the Irish Saints, in verse, written in the tenth century:—The Saints of the Roman Breviary:—An account of the Conversion of the Irish and English to Christianity, with some other subjects. Laud. F. 92. This book, as is common in old Irish manuscripts, has here and there some Latin notes intermixed with Irish, and may possibly contain some hints of the doctrines of the Druids.
An old vellum MS. of 140 pages, in the form of a music-book, containing the works of St Columba, in verse, with some account of his own life; his exhortations to princes and his prophecies. Laud. D. 17.
A chronological history of Ireland, by Jeffrey Keating, D.D.
Among the Clarendon MSS. at Oxford are—
Annales Ultonienses, sic dicti quod precipué contineant res gestas Ultoniensium. Codex antiquissimus caractere Hibernico scriptus; sed sermone, partim Hibernico, partim Latino. Fol. membr. The 16th and 17th specimens in Plate xxii. of Astle’s work are taken from this MS., which is numbered 31 of Dr Rawlinson’s MSS.
Annales Tigernaci (Erenaci. ut opiniatur Warœus Clonmanaisensis. Vid. Annal. Ulton. ad an. 1088), mutili in initio et alibi. Liber charactere et lingua Hibernicis scriptus. Memb.
These annals, which are written in the old Irish character, were originally collected by Sir James Ware, and came into the possession successively of the Earl of Clarendon, the Duke of Chandos, and of Dr Rawlinson.