80 Proceedings of the Boyal Irish Academy. 



sons O'Clery got the leaves is the Conner MacBrody whose name appears in 

 the Testimonia prefixed to the Martyrology of Donegal, 1 and to the Annals of 

 the Four Masters.- These Testimonia are dated 11th Xovember, 1636. 



It appears to be equally impossible to ascertain at what date Michael O'Clery 

 carried these fragmentary leaves over to the Irish Franciscan Convent of 

 Saint Antony of Padua at Louvain, 3 where he died in 1643. Among the 

 parchment mss. found in the chamber of O'Clery's compatriot Colgan, who 

 died in the same monastery in 1658, were "Folia aliquot Hibernica, aliquot 

 Latino."* 



It is possible that our fragments were among these folia ; at any rate, 

 they and the other Irish mss. collected by O'Clery and his companions 

 remained at Louvain down to the period of the Trench Revolution, when the 

 collection was broken up, part of the mss. being taken to Brussels and the 

 remainder to the Franciscan Monastery of Sant' Isidoro, Borne. 5 Our Psalter 

 found its way to the latter establishment, where it remained unnoticed till 

 the entomologist "Westwood 6 in 1868 devoted a few lines to describing it. He 

 said nothing about its traditional origin, and correctly assigned it to the 

 eleventh or twelfth century. 



Shortly afterwards (1870) Cardinal Moran published an uncritical and 

 inaccurate account of it in his Biblical MSS. of the Early Irish Church? He 

 believed it to be a genuine relic of the time of St. Caimin. 



1 Ed. Reeves and Todd, 1864, p. li. 2 Ed. O'Donovan, i, 1851, p. lxix. 



3 No thorough study of the noble and remarkable work carried on by the Irish 

 Franciscans and their associates at Donegal and Louvain in the middle of the seventeenth 

 century for the preservation and elucidation of the documents dealing with their country's 

 ecclesiastical history has as yet been made. We remain still in the dark as to most of 

 the details of the careers of Fleming, O'Clery, Colgan, TVard, <fcc. The best general 

 account of the movement is that of De Buck, L' Archeologie irlandaise au couvent deSaint- 

 Antoinede Padoue a Lourtiin (Extrait des Ettides religieuses, historiques et litteraires, Paris, 

 1869;. 



1 Gilbert (Historical MSS. Commission, Fourth Report, 1874, Appendix, p. 611). 



6 Those who wish to study the history of the Irish monastery at Louvain may read 

 the Irish Ecclesiastical Record, vii [1871], pp. 31-43, 56-77, 193-216, 268-289 ; Gilbert 

 (loc. cit. supra, pp. 599-613); Murphy (Journ. R. Soc. of Antiquaries, xxiii, 1893, 

 pp. 237-250). These articles are not of much value, and a critical study of the original 

 documents has yet to be made (cf. Tourneur, BVAiotheque de la Facxdte de Philosophic et 

 des Lettres de VUnirersite de Liege, Fasc. 15, 1905, pp. 61-66). From what has been 

 stated above it seems most probable that O'Clery got the MS. from the sons of MacBrody 

 in or about the year 1636, and had deposited it in the Donegal monastery befor 1639. 

 TTssher had seen it before the latter year, but he does not tell us where. It is possible 

 that he was shown it by O'Clery, with whom he is known to have had relations. The 

 latter may have taken it to Louvain in 1643. 



: miles of Miniatures and Ornaments of Anglo-Saxon and Irish MSS., 1868, 

 Text, p. 88. 



" The Atlantis. No. ix, 1870, pp. 77-79. The whole essay is full of errors and is of 

 little value. 



