Lismore, Book Of

LISMORE, BOOK OF References and Further Reading examine it. An important description of the manuscript; its history, foliation, and pagination; its scribes, Curtis, Edmund. “The viceroyalty of Lionel, duke of Clarence in Ireland, 1361–1367.” Journal of the Royal Society of contents, and missing leaves; and finally its binding Antiquaries of Ireland 47 (1917) 165–81; 48 (1918) 65–73. has been made by Brian Ó Cuív. Connolly, Philomena. “The financing of English expeditions to Among the known patrons of one of the scribes, Ireland, 1361–1376.” In England and Ireland in the Later Aonghas Ó Callanáin, was Fínghin Mac Cárthaigh Middle Ages: Essays in honour of Jocelyn Otway-Ruthven, Riabhach of Cairbre in County Cork. Ó Callanáin, edited by James Lydon, 104–21. Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1981. however, was not the chief scribe. Scribal notes on folios 2r, 7v, 11r, and 17r refer to a lánamhna (married See also Central Government; Connacht; couple), for whom texts on those leaves were written. Gaelicisation; Leinster; Lordship of Ireland; Some scholars have identified this couple as the afore- Mortimer; Parliament; Richard II; Ulster, mentioned Fínghin (d. 1505), lord of Cairbre, and his Earldom of; William of Windsor wife Caitlín (d. 1506), a daughter of Thomas Fitzgerald (d. 1468), eighth earl of Desmond. This identification LISMORE, BOOK OF is by no means certain, however, and the couple may be another husband and wife, possibly Fínghin’s father and mother. The manuscript may have been written for Description this earlier couple and added to during Fínghin’s time. The Book of Lismore was not prepared for the library This is a fifteenth-century vellum codex also known of a monastery or of a professional scholar. It is one as Leabhar Mhic Cárthaigh Riabhaigh (The Book of of a number of fifteenth-century composite volumes Mac Cárthaigh Riabhach). It is now called the Book that were compiled for lay patrons. The contents of of Lismore because it came to light during the course of these manuscripts reflect the varied interests of the structural alterations in Lismore Castle, County Water- members of the Gaelic and Anglo-Irish nobility at the ford, in 1814. Unfortunately, the manuscript suffered at time. One other such manuscript is the Book of Fermoy, the hands of local “scholars” in Cork at that time, and a manuscript comprising several sections written in many leaves were abstracted from it. It now consists different periods and containing a wide diversity of of 198 folios. The writing (with the exception of the material. It was written mainly in the fifteenth century recto page of what is now folio 116) is in two col- for the Anglo-Irish Roches of Fermoy, County Cork. umns. There are a number of eighteenth-century It has been suggested that some parts of both the Book manuscripts that—it is believed—derive their contents of Fermoy and the Book of Lismore were written by in part, either directly or indirectly, from the Book of the same scribe. Lismore. It has also been suggested that some other texts found in one or more of these manuscripts may Contents have been contained in the missing sections of the earlier codex. In 1930, the manuscript was transferred Among the contents of the Book of Lismore are many to Chatsworth, the Derbyshire seat of the Duke of texts of religious interest. There are saints’ lives, Devonshire (the owner of Lismore Castle), and has including those of Brigit, Colum Cille, and Patrick. remained there in private keeping. In 1950, a collotype There are apocryphal texts, including a copy of An facsimile edition of the manuscript was published by Tenga Bithnua (The Evernew Tongue), the title of a the Irish Manuscripts Commission with a descriptive dialogue between the Hebrew sages and the spirit of introduction and indexes by R. A. S. Macalister. It the apostle Philip, who is called “Evernew Tongue” should be pointed out, however, that the introduction because when he was preaching to the heathen his suffers from some deficiencies and contains a number tongue was nine times cut out and nine times miracu- of errors. Some of the leaves abstracted from the manu- lously restored. There is also a medieval account of script at the beginning of the nineteenth century may Antichrist. The manuscript contains various other texts have contained information about the patrons for (both prose and poetry), of which the following is a whom it was compiled, the scribes, and the date (or selection: There is a copy of Lebor na Cert (The Book dates) of compilation. Little information of this kind of Rights), which contains, among other material, a has survived in the manuscript in its extant form. A collection of poems on the stipends and tributes of the full examination of the hands of the manuscript has kingdoms of Ireland. It has been dated to the twelfth also yet to be undertaken. The fact that the original century. There are copies of Caithréim Chellacháin manuscript is in private keeping has meant that com- Chaisil (“The Triumph of Cellachán of Cashel”), paratively few scholars have had an opportunity to one of the historical tales of Irish literature and of 279 LISMORE, BOOK OF Acallam na Senórach (Colloquy of the Ancients), an County Limerick had probably been carved out of the important collection of material relating to the legend- older county of Munster by the 1230s, and by the 1250s ary Fionn mac Cumhaill and his band of warriors, the remainder of that county had come to be called believed to have been written in the late twelfth cen- County Tipperary rather than Munster. Connacht, tury. A further tale is Tromdám Guaire (“The Oppres- too, had its own sheriff by 1236, reflecting the progress sive Company of Guaire”), the oppressive company in of conquest in the west and the creation of a county question being Senchán Torpéist and his retinue of there. It too subsequently had a separate county (of poets who visit Guaire, king of Connacht, and make Roscommon) carved out of it, perhaps in 1288. It was unreasonable demands upon him. The tale is a satire not until 1297 that a separate county of Meath was on certain aspects of the role of the poet in medieval established, coterminous with the original liberty of Ireland. The Book of Lismore also contains a number Meath, but with a sheriff directly responsible for only of Irish translations of foreign sources, including the the de Verdon portion of that liberty. All these were only extant copy of Leabhar Ser Marco Polo (The Book royal counties, with sheriffs who were directly answer- of Sir Marco Polo), a translation of the Latin version able to the Dublin administration. There were also of Marco Polo’s Il Milione, probably written between private sheriffs within the greater liberties who were 1320 and 1325. There is also a copy of Gabháltas immediately answerable to the lords of these liberties Séarlais Mhóir (The Conquest of Charlemagne), and their stewards (or seneschals). The large liberty of believed to have been translated from Latin, possibly Leinster had been divided into four separate adminis- about 1400, and of Stair na Lombardach (“The History trative units from the late twelfth century on. A sepa- of the Lombards”), probably a fifteenth-century trans- rate sheriff of County Kildare is first mentioned in lation of a chapter (“De S. Pelagio papa”) from Legenda 1224, before the partition of the liberty itself between Aurea, compiled by Jacobus de Voragine between 1260 coheirs. References to the other counties seem to and 1270. come only after the division (to Co. Wexford in 1249; CAOIMHÍN BREATNACH to County Carlow in 1254; to County Kilkenny in 1255), but the division itself probably followed the preexisting division into separate counties. The liberty References and Further Reading of Ulster was also divided into a number of separate The Book of Lismore. Facsimile with introduction by R.A.S. counties. In the fourteenth century there also emerged Macalister. Dublin: Irish Manuscripts Comission, 1950. within each of the liberties counties consisting of lands Stokes, Whitley (ed.), Lives of the saints from the Book of belonging to the church (cross-lands) in the liberty that Lismore. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1890. Ó Cuív, Brian. “Observations on the Book of Lismore.” Pro- were exempt for this reason from the control of the ceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 83C (1983): 269-92. lord of the liberty and directly subject to the king’s rule. These sheriffs of the cross-lands also came to See also Hagiography and Martyrologies; Hiberno- play a rule in acting in the counties within the liberties Norman (Latin); Historical Tales; Mac Carthy; when the steward of the liberty failed to do so. The Satire names of some of the counties were derived from those of preexisting native Irish administrative and political units, either provinces or kingdoms (Munster, Meath, LOCAL GOVERNMENT Connacht, Uriel). Others were named after specific The main unit of local government in the later medi- towns that formed the core of the counties concerned eval Lordship of Ireland was one imported from and constituted their administrative centers (Dublin, England and with a long prior history in that country— Cork, Waterford, Carlow, Kildare, Roscommon, the county. The first counties were probably created in Wexford, Kilkenny, Tipperary). the final years of the twelfth century. By the beginning The county’s main administrative official was the of the second decade of the thirteenth century, separate sheriff, who was chosen by the local county court. counties of Dublin, Munster, Cork, and Waterford had Governmental orders were transmitted from Dublin or come into existence in those areas reserved to the from England to the sheriff for local execution within Crown at the time of the initial Anglo-Norman invasion his county, and he was normally required to report of Ireland or during the later expansion of the Lord- back on what had been done or why it had not been ship.

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