This volume celebrates the work of William OSullivan, the first keeper of manuscripts at Trinity College, Dublin, who preserved, made more accessible and elucidated the documents in his care. The manuscripts throw new light on the society of Ireland, the place of the learned and literate in that world, and its relations with Britain, Europe and America. Some of these essays clarify technical problems in the making of famous manuscripts, and bring out for the first time their indebtedness to or influence over other manuscripts. Others provide unexpected new information about the reigns of Edward I and James I, Irish provincial society, the process and progress of religious change and the links between settlements in Ireland and North American colonization.
Contents: William OSullivan: four appreciations, Toby Barnard, DĆ”ibhĆ
Ć CróinĆn, Elizabeth Hickey, Katharine Simms; The earliest dry-point
glosses in Codex Usserianus Primus, PĆ”draig Ć Néill; The Book of Kells and
the Corbie Psalter (with a note on Harley 2788), Bernard Meehan; Lebar Buide
Meic Murchada, DĆ”ibhĆ Ć CróinĆn; The travels of Irish manuscripts: from
the continent to Ireland, Dagmar à Riain-Raedel; Lebor GabÔla in the Book
of Lecan, TomÔs à Concheanainn; Codex Salmanticensis: a provenance inter
Anglos or inter Hibernos?, PÔdraig à Riain; Two previously unprinted
chronicles of the reign of EdwardĀ I, Marvin Colker; English Carthusian books
not yet linked with a charterhouse, A.I. Doyle; Reforming the Holy Isle: Parr
Lane and the conversion of the Irish, Alan Ford; Preliminaries to the
Massachusetts Bay Colony: the Irish ventures of Emanuel Downing and John
Winthrop, Sr, Rolf Loeber; The hagiography of William Bedell, Karl S.
Bottigheimer; Learning, the Learned and literacy in Ireland, c.1660-1760,
Toby Barnard; A description of County Mayo c.1684 by R Downing, Nollaig Ć
MuraĆle; Charles Lynegar, the Ć LuinĆn family and the study of Seanchas,
Katharine Simms; A select bibliography of William OSullivan; Manuscripts
cited; Index.
Toby Barnard, University of Oxford, UK, Daibhi O Croinin, University College, Galway, Ireland, and Katharine Simms, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland;