O'Looney — On the Book of Leinster and its Contents. 375 



follower, as he certainly was a strong partisan, of King Brian Borumha, who fell in 

 that hattle. The MS. of which we are now treating was therefore written certainly 

 before 1166, and probably within the century after the death of the author of the 

 work. 



The Editor, in the notes upon the first twenty-eight chapters or sections of the 

 text, has distinguished the various readings of this MS. by the letter L. It exhibits 

 several peculiarities of spelling, interesting to the philological student of the Celtic 

 languages; but it has not been thought necessary to notice all these, as the whole of 

 this valuable fragment has been preserved in the Appendix, t 



Iii his Appendix A. Dr. Todd added: — 



The fragment of this work contained in the remains of the Book of Leinster, a 

 MS. of the 12th century, in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin, is evidently a 

 much older text, and in a more ancient orthography than that which is found in the 

 Brussels MS. It has therefore been given here with a translation, in parallel 

 columns. This, it will be remembered, is the MS. which is for shortness referred 

 to by the letter L in the notes, pp. 1,31. There are unfortunately several illegible 

 words and passages in this MS., which has suffered greatly from age and damp. 



Footnotes from War of the Gaedhil with the Gaill. 



* This signifies that Aedh was abbot or bishop of Tirdaglass, now Terryglass, 

 County Tipperary, where was a celebrated monastery, founded by Colum Mac 

 Crimthainn, who died a. d. 548. 



t Flann Mac Lonain, a celebrated Irish poet, many of whose productions are 

 still extant, died in 891. 



X The Editor has taken the liberty of altering a few words of Mr. O'Curry's 

 translation of this curious entry (Lectures, p. 186) ; but the passage in italics he 

 has allowed to stand, because, although he believes Mr. O'Curry's reading of the 

 original (App. lxxxiv.) to be wrong, he is unable to correct it. It is very obscure 

 in the MS., having been written upon an erasure, which has caused some of the 

 letters to be blurred or blotted; the words which Mr. O'Curry prints ciati -jao 

 picem tjotj (?) hmgriAif appear to the Editor to be ciAn £Ap ; ceip Liuh is 

 n-ingriAir*, of which he can make no sense. It will be observed that the foregoing 

 note does not assert Bishop Finn to have been the scribe by whom the " Book of 

 Leinster" was written. That he was so is inferred by Mr. O'Curry, from the great 

 similarity of the handwriting of the note to that of the text; and Finn, if not the 

 writer of the MS., was probably the writer of the note. The "little history," or 

 historic tale, alluded to, if we suppose it to be that to which the note refers, ends 

 imperfectly at the bottom of folio 206 b. The next leaf begins in the middle of a 

 sentence, having no connexion with what went before; and the defect is of long 

 standing, for the old paginations, made in the fourteenth or fifteenth century, take 

 no notice of it, the next folio being marked 207- The page to which the foregoing- 

 note is appended contains the story of the progress of Tadg, son of Cian, son of 

 Ailill Olum, into Meath, or the Battle of Crinna. See O'Curry, Lectures, App. 

 lxxxix., p. 593; Keating (in the reign of Fergus Dubhdedach) ; 0' Flaherty's 

 Ogygia, pp. 331-2. The words of the note — "Let the conclusion of this little 

 history be written for me" — appear to intimate that the "little history" was un- 

 finished when the note was written, and the inference is that it never was com- 

 pleted. 



§ Finn, it will be observed, calls himself " bishop," not Bishop of Kildare, 

 which is a subsequent insertion. This is an evidence of antiquity, the establishment 

 of territorial dioceses being then recent, and the titles derived from them not having as 

 yet come fully into use. This prelate assisted at the Synod of Kells in 1152, 

 according to Keating, who calls him (as in some copies) " son of Cianain," but 

 other copies read "son of Tigernain." The Four Masters call him Finn Mac 



