Manuscripts: The collection of Irish-language manuscripts in Oxford comprises 57 items. Ranging in date from the 11th to the 20th century, and in size from a substantial medieval codex of more than 150 vellum folios to a single leaf of paper, it is representative of Ireland's manuscript heritage as a whole.
This catalogue provides a meticulous description of the content, physical make-up, and where possible the history of each manuscript, but it offers much more than the sum of its parts. In effect, it relates some of the central episodes in the story of Ireland's long engagement with the written word.
The Oxford chapter of that story begins in 1601, when the Bodleian Library recorded the donation of the first of its 21 medieval vellums. It is an 11th or 12th century copy of Latin texts, including a translation of Plato's Timaeus, accompanied by Irish glosses. This vernacular material is much older than the manuscript itself; it takes us back to the first flowering of manuscript writing in Ireland, and affords a glimpse of the curriculum of the early monastic schools.
Of similar date, but more typical of the catalogue - the texts themselves being in Irish - is Rawlinson B 502. The prosaic name recalls the 18th-century collector whose bequest to the Bodleian included 13 vellums once owned by Sir James Ware (1666), auditor general of Ireland with antiquarian interests to which we owe the salvaging of much of our medieval literary heritage. This is a veritable library of historical, genealogical and literary material (including a lament for Colum Cille possibly composed shortly after his death in 597), which completes the picture of the scope of learning pursued in the scriptoria of pre-Norman Ireland. A measure of how much primary work remains to be done in this field is the fact that some of the texts in this precious codex have not yet been edited.
Among the many outstanding late medieval vellums, pride of place, as much for its beauty and size, as well as for the value and variety of its contents, may be claimed for the 15th-century Laud Misc. 610, commissioned by the Butlers of Ormond, and executed by members of the hereditary learned families. Highly valued, it formed part of a ransom for its patron after his capture in 1462 by the Earl of Desmond. It came to Oxford from the collection of Sir George Carew, President of Munster under Elizabeth I. There is an irony in Carew's double legacy: he helped to preserve the written documents of a culture he had worked to destroy.
The later manuscripts are of paper, with an increasing admixture of English. A more modern item reflects the efforts to reverse that development: it is the minute-book of the Oxford University branch of the Gaelic League up to 1916.
An important part of the cataloguer's work is describing and identifying scribal hands. The second volume offers a visual tour of the development of Irish script in 56 splendid plates, many in full colour. A delightful non-textual item is an illustration of a tenth-century board-game. The voices of the scribes can also sometimes be heard, in marginal jottings, such as one cursing a mouse which had nibbled the vellum.
Prof Ó Cuív sadly did not live to see the publication of his work, beautifully produced by the institution where he spent most of his long and productive career. He dedicated the catalogue to "those scribes and scholars whose work is described in it".
It is a lasting monument to them, and a crowning achievement of a lifetime of scholarship.
Catalogue of Irish Language Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library at
Oxford and Oxford College Libraries Compiled by Brian Ó Cuív
School of Celtic Studies, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies
Part 1: Descriptions (2001) 2 colour plates, 323pp. €25
Part II: Plates and Indexes (2003) 40 colour plates, 16
black-and-white plates, 104pp. €25
Patricia Kelly lectures in Early Irish language and literature in University College, Dublin