374 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



The next notice published of the manuscript was the following, by 

 the late Rev. Dr. Todd, in the Introduction to the War of the Gaedhil 

 with the Gaitt, 1867 : — 



The following work has been edited from three manuscripts, two of them unfor- 

 tunately imperfect. 



The first and most ancient of these consists of a single folio, closely written on 

 both sides, in double columns. It is a leaf of the Book of Leinster, now preserved 

 in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin. It contains the first twenty-nine sections 

 only of the work ; nevertheless, imperfect as it is, this fragment, for many reasons, 

 is so important, that the Editor has thought it fit to preserve it, with a translation, 

 in the Appendix. 



The Book of Leinster is a Bibliotheca. or collection of historical tracts, poems, 

 tales, genealogies, &c. It was written by Finn [Mac Gorman], Bishop of Kildare, 

 or at least during his lifetime, for Aedh Mac Crimthain, or Hugh Mac Griffin, tutor 

 of Diarmait Mac Murchadha [Dermod Mac Murrogh], the King of Leinster, who 

 was so celebrated for his connexion with the Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland, in 

 the reign of Henry II. 



The following note occurs in the lower margin of folio 206 b of this MS. It is 

 in a hand clcsely resembling that in which the book itself is written, and certainly 

 of the same century : — ■ 



" Life and health from Finn, Bishop [i. e., of Kildare] to Aedh Mac Crimthain, 



tutor [•ppieignro] of the chief King of Leth Mogha [i.e., Nuadat], and 



successor* [coniA-pbu] of Colum Mac Crimthainn, and chief historian of 



Leinster in wisdom and knowledge, and cultivation of books, and science and 



learning. And let the conclusion of this little history be written for me 



accurately by thee, acute Aedh, thou possessor of the sparkling intellect. 



May it be long till we are -without thee. It is my desire that thou shouldest be 



always with us. Let Mac Lonan's bookf of poems be given to me, that we 



may find out the sense of the poems that are in it, et vale in Christo," % &c. 



Finn, Bishop of Kildare, died in 1160, according to the Annals of the Four 



Masters. § He appears to have occupied that see since 1148, in which year his 



predecessor, O'Dubhin, died; but he was a bishop when the foregoing note was 



composed, and therefore the portion of the book to which it relates must have been 



written between the years just mentioned, if not before. 



Of Aedh Mac Crimthan the Irish Annals have unfortunately preserved no 

 record; but if he was tutor to King Diarmait Mac Murchadha (who was born in 

 1110), he must have lived very early in the twelfth century. 



It will be observed that the foregoing note is written in a strong spirit of 

 partisanship, the writer asserting boldly the claim* of his chieftain, Diarmait, to be the 

 chief King of Leth Mogha, that is Leinster and Munster, the southern half of 

 Ireland ; and the same spirit appears in another place, folio 200 a, where a hand 

 much more recent than that of the MS. has written in the upper margin the 

 following strong expressionf of grief: — 



" [O Mary?] It is a great deed that is done in Erinn this day, the kalends of 

 August. Dermod, son of Donnchadh Mac Murchadha, King of Leinster and of the 

 Danes, J was banished by the men of Ireland over the sea eastward. Uch ! uch ! O 

 Lord! what shall I do?" 



The event thus so pathetically lamented took place in the year 1 166. § We know 

 not who it was that so recorded his despair, but the note is evidence that this book, to 

 which the name of " Book of Leinster " has been given, was written in the lifetime 

 of Dermot Mac Murrogh, and was most probably his property, or that of some emi- 

 nent personage amongst his followers or clansmen before the English invasion. 



These circumstances are important, as proving beyond all reasonable doubt that 

 the copy of the present work which this MS. once contained,* and of which only a 

 single folio leaf remains, must have been written in the twelfth century, and the 

 original must therefore have been still earlier. The author mentions no event later 

 than the battle of Clontarf, a. d. 1014, and was probably a contemporary and 



