Its contents are of an extremely miscellaneous character, and they are all, with the exception of a copy of The Life of Alexander the Great from the VIIth century, MS. of S. Berchan of Clonsost, of a religious nature, comprising Biblical narratives, homilies, hymns; pedigrees of saints, litanies and liturgies, monastic rules, the Martyrology of Aengus Céulé Dé, or the Culdee, the ancient rules of discipline of the order of the Culdees, etc., etc. When the Abbé Mac Geoghegan wrote his History of Ancient Erinn in Paris, in the year 1758, this volume, his principal MS. of reference, was in Paris. It is now in the Royal Irish Academy.
Three pages have been selected for fac-similes, giving a description of the nature and arrangement of the [pg 217] Féliré, or Festology of Aengus the Culdee, and the date and object of its composition, which was made between the years 793 and 817, when Aedh Oirdnidhe was monarch of Erinn.
Then comes the Leabhar Buidhe Lecain, or Yellow Book of Lecain, a large quarto volume of about five hundred pages, which was written by Donnoch and Gilla Isa Mac Firbis in the year 1390, with the exception of a few tracts of a somewhat later date. O'Curry, in his ninth lecture, supposes it to have been originally a collection of ancient historical pieces, civil and ecclesiastical, in prose and verse. In its present imperfect state it contains a number of family and political poems; some monastic rules; a description of Tara and its banqueting-hall; a translation of part of the Book of Genesis; the Feast of Dun-na-n Gedh and the battle of Magh Rath; an account of the reign of Muirchertach Mac Erca, and his death at the palace of Cleitech in the year 527; copies of cattle-spoils, of the Bruighean Da Dearga, and death of the king; the tale of Maelduin's three years' wanderings in the Atlantic; tracts concerning the banishment of an ancient tribe from East Meath, and their discovery in the Northern Ocean by some Irish ecclesiastics; accounts of battles in the years 594, 634, and 718, and many other curious and valuable pieces and tracts. It is preserved in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin.
Two pages have been selected. The first contains the plan of the Teach Miodchuarta of ancient Tara, with a portion of the prose preface to the poem, which the plan is intended to illustrate. This ground-plan differs somewhat in the shape of the hall and the arrangement of the tables from that given in the Book of Leinster, an earlier copy of a different original. It is also very much superior to it, both as regards the drawing and writing. The daul and his spit are unrepresented here, but there is the door, the common hall, the swinging lamp and candles, the great double-handed vase, called the dabhach or vat, and three places marked out for the fires. The arrangement of the hall appears to have been this: Each of the two outside compartments contained twelve seats, and each seat three sitters; the two airidins or divisions on either side of the centre of the hall held each eight seats and sixteen sitters. There were eight distributors, cup-bearers, and herdsmen at the upper end of the hall, and two sat in each of the two seats on either side of the door, being the two door-keepers and two of the royal fools. The daily allowance for dinner was two cows, two salted hogs, and two pigs. The quantity of liquor consumed is not specified, but the poem states that there were one hundred drinkings in the vat, and that the vat was supplied with fifty grooved golden horns and fifty pewter vessels. The order of precedence seems to have ranged from the top of the external division to the left on entering the hall; then to the top of the external division to the right; then the two internal divisions beginning with the left; then the iarthar or back part of the hall, the upper end opposite the door; and last the seats on either side of the door itself. There is no seat marked for the king, but it is stated in the poem that a fourth part of the hall was at his back and three-fourths before him, and he is supposed to have sat about a quarter of the way down the centre of [pg 218] the hall with his face toward the door, which would place him between two of the great fires, with the artisans on his right and the braziers and fools on his left hand. It is probable, however, from no mention being made of the king's seat, and no provision being made for him in the appropriation of the daily allowance of food, which is specified in as many rations as there are persons mentioned in the plan, that this is not the plan of the royal banqueting-hall, but of a portion of it only—the common dining-hall for the officers and retainers of the palace; the monarch himself and his princes and nobles, none of whom are even alluded to in the plan, dining in another and superior apartment.
The second page contains a portion of the sorrowful tale of the loves of fair Deirdré and Naoisi, the son of Uisneach, one of the class of Irish legends called Aithidhé, or elopements. An outline of this story, in the commencement of which the reader will recognize that of one of his early nursery favorites, “Little Snow White,” is given by Keating in his General History of Ireland.
The Book of Lecain Mac Firbisigh, a folio of more than six hundred pages, was compiled in the year 1418 by Gilla Isa Môr Mac Firbis, Adam O'Cuirnin, and Morogh Riabhac O'Cuindlis. Its contents are nearly the same as those of The Book of Ballymote, to some of which it furnishes valuable additions, among the most important of which is a tract on the families and subdivisions of the territory of Tir Fiachrach in the present county of Sligo. The volume is preserved in the Royal Irish Academy.
Four pages have been selected, being a portion of a copy of the Leabhar na g-Ceart, or Book of Rights, a metrical work attributed in the work itself to S. Benean or Benignus, S. Patrick's earliest convert, and his successor in the Archbishopric of Armagh in the middle of the Vth century. These four pages, which are written in columnar form, contain the concluding ten verses of the stipends due to the chieftainries of Connacht from the supreme King of Cruachain; the metrical accounts, with their preceding prose abstracts, of the privileges of the King of Aileach; the payment and stipends of the same king to his chieftainries and tribes for refection and escort; the privileges of the King of the Oirghialla with the stipends due to him from the King of Erinn, and by him to his chieftainries; the rights, wages, stipends, refections, and tributes of the King of Eamhain and Uladh; and almost all the prose abstract of the rights of the King of Tara.
The Book of Ballymote, a large folio volume of five hundred and two pages of vellum, was written, as stated on the dorse of folio 62, at Ballymote, in the house of Tomaltach oig Mac Donogh, Lord of Corann, during the reign of Torlogh oig, the son of Hugh O'Conor, King of Connaught. It appears to be the work of different hands, but the principal scribes employed in writing it were Solomon O'Droma and Manus O'Duigenann, and it was written at the end of the XIVth century.
It contains an imperfect copy of the Leabhar Gabhala, or Book of Invasions, a series of ancient chronological, historical, and genealogical pieces in prose and verse; the pedigrees of Irish saints, and the histories and pedigrees of all the great families of the Milesian race, [pg 219] with their collateral branches, so that, as O'Curry remarks, there is scarcely any one whose name begins with “O'” or “Mac” who could not find out all about his origin and family in this book; then follow stories and adventures, lists of famous Irish names, a Gaelic translation of Nennius' History of the Britons, an ancient grammar and prosody, and various other tracts.
Six pages have been selected. The first four contain the dissertation on the Ogham characters, and the last two the genealogy of the Hy Nialls, showing their descent from Eremon, one of the sons of Milesius. The volume belongs to the Irish Academy.