The Book of Lismore, also known as the Book of Mac Carthaigh Riabhach, is a late fifteenth-century Gaelic manuscript that was created at Kilbrittain, Co. Cork, for Fínghean Mac Carthaigh, Lord of Carbery. Defective at beginning and end, 198 leaves survive today, containing a miscellany of religious and secular texts written entirely in Irish. The main scribe of the manuscript did not sign his name. A second scribe, who wrote eleven leaves, signed himself Aonghus Ó Callanáin, and was probably a member of a well-known family of medical scholars from West Cork. Other relief scribes contribute short stints throughout the book.
Contents
While poetry is well represented throughout the manuscript, the dominant form is prose, dating linguistically from the medieval period to the fifteenth century. The contents display thoughtful organisation, beginning with religious material mostly relating to the saints of Ireland, including Patrick, Brigid, Colum Cille, Kieran and Brendan, but also incorporating the early medieval Teanga Bhiothnua. Texts translated to Irish, broadly related to the religious theme, are found in this section also, and feature the Conquests of Charlemagne, the History of the Lombards, and The Travels of Marco Polo. Between them, the religious works and the translated texts account for approximately half of the contents. The rest of the manuscript features native, secular texts. These include material relating to kingship, some of which centres on Diarmaid mac Cearbhaill, a sixth-century king of Ireland; tales such as Caithréim Cheallacháin Chaisil, Eachtra Thaidhg Mhic Céin and Cath Crionna; the satire Tromdhámh Ghuaire ; and traditions concerning Fionn mac Cumhaill as related in the late-twelfth century prosimetrum, Agallamh na Seanórach. These Fionn traditions occupy approximately one quarter of the manuscript. The texts in the Book of Lismore are comprehensive in their representation of religious and secular learning in the Irish language as preserved and promoted by the elite learned classes of late-medieval Ireland. In its design and execution, and in its combination of native and European tradition, the Book is a library of literature that makes a self-assured statement about aristocratic literary taste in autonomous Gaelic Ireland in the late 15th century.
Later History
After the fifteenth century, one gets only sporadic glimpses of the Book during the next 300 years. In 1629 it was deposited in the nearby Franciscan Friary of Timoleague, where the renowned scribe, author and historian, Brother Míchéal Ó Cléirigh OFM copied material from it. It is thought to be identical to a book confiscated by Lord Kinalmeaky at the siege of Kilbrittain in 1642, and sent by him to his father, Robert Boyle, first Earl of Cork. It is uncertain when the Book was brought to Lismore Castle, Co. Waterford. In the eighteenth century the castle passed by marriage from the Boyle family to the Cavendishes, Dukes of Devonshire. In 1814, during renovations to the Castle and town of Lismore by the sixth Duke, the manuscript was rediscovered, having apparently been walled up in the Castle with the Lismore Crozier, which is now in the National Museum of Ireland. Upon its discovery the Book was soon loaned to the Cork scribe and scholar, Donnchadh Ó Floinn, whose friend, Micheál Óg Ó Longáin, transcribed nearly all of the manuscript in 1817, under the sponsorship of Bishop John Murphy. The title ‘Book of Lismore’ or ‘Leabhar Leasa Móir’ dates from this time. From this and other transcripts by Mícheál Óg many further copies of sections and individual texts were made, and this contributed to a temporary revival of manuscript-making in Cork during the first half of the nineteenth century. The Book was returned to Lismore around 1821-2, but sixty-six leaves remained in Cork, and were subsequently sold to the Duke in 1860. Further transcripts were made by Eugene O'Curry and by Mícheál Og's youngest son, Seosamh, who was by that time employed by the Royal Irish Academy. In 1907 The Book went on public display at the Irish International Exhibition held in Herbert Park, Dublin. In 1914 the manuscript was transferred from Lismore to England, and was kept in Chatsworth from 1920 to 2020, except for the years 1939–48 when it was removed to safe storage and also made available for the creation of the facsimile published in 1950. In 1879 a photographic reproduction of pages from the manuscript appeared, for the first time, in the third fascicle of John Gilbert’s Facsimiles of national manuscripts of Ireland. A printed photographic facsimile, in black and white, of the entire manuscript was made under the direction of R.A.S. Macalister and published in 1950. In 2010 the entire manuscript was digitized by Irish Script on Screen in advance of the public exhibition of the Book at University College Cork in 2011.
