Irish writings prior to the use of paper and print were written on vellum in a distinctive minuscule script which reflects 1, 000 years of literary tradition. Extant examples, deriving from the end of the 11th to the end of the 16th cent. (though sometimes containing material copied from much earlier writings), are bound in codices or collections held at various libraries in Ireland and abroad. Besides the annals, the chief of these are the Book of Armagh; the Book of Ballymote; the Book of Fermoy; the Book of Glendalough; the Book of Lecan; the Book of Leinster; the Book of Lismore; the Book of Rights; the Book of the Dun Cow (Lebor na hUidre); the Book of Uí Mhaine; Leabhar Breac (Speckled Book or Book of Duniry), Leabhar Clainne Suibhne; and the Yellow Book of Lecan. The manuscripts are the source for all the major texts of Old and Middle Irish literature, such as sagas [see tale-types], dinnshenchas, genealogies, law tracts, and much other lore. The most important surviving manuscripts from the pre-Norman period are associated with centres of learning in Leinster such as Clonmacnoise and Glendalough.
Bibliography
individual entries; and Francis John Byrne, A Thousand Years of Irish Script (1979).
