and genealogical material. The contents of the _Leabhar Breac_ (LB.), or
Speckled Book, now in the Royal Irish Academy, are chiefly
ecclesiastical and religious. LB. seems to have been compiled in large
measure before 1544. All these five codices have been published in
facsimile by the Royal Irish Academy with a description of their
contents. Two important Mid. Ir. MSS. in the Bodleian (Rawlinson B 512
and Laud 610), containing a good deal of romantic material, are also
published in facsimile by Henry Frowde.

Other MSS. material.

Other MSS. which require special mention are (1) The Great Book of
Lecan, compiled in the year 1417 by Gilla Isa Mor MacFirbis, in the
Royal Irish Academy; (2) The Book of Lismore, the property of the duke
of Devonshire at Lismore Castle. This codex was compiled in the latter
half of the 15th century from the lost book of Monasterboice and other
MSS. Its contents are described in the introduction to Stokes's _Lives
of Saints from the Book of Lismore_ (Oxford, 1890). (3) The Book of
Fermoy in the Royal Irish Academy. The contents are described in the
introduction to O'Beirne Crowe's edition of the _Tain Bo Fraich_
(Dublin, 1870). (4) The Book of Hy Maine recently acquired by the Royal
Irish Academy. The scribe who wrote it died in 1372. O'Curry, O'Longan
and O'Beirne Crowe drew up a MS. catalogue of the Irish MSS. in the
Royal Irish Academy, and O'Donovan performed the same service for the
Trinity College, Dublin, collection. A briefer account of the Irish MSS.
in TCD. will be found in Abbott's Catalogue of the MSS. in that library.
O'Curry also drew up a list of the Irish MSS. in the British Museum, and
S.H. O'Grady has printed part i. of a descriptive catalogue of this
collection (London, 1901), part ii. by T. O'Maille. The twenty-six MSS.
in the Franciscan monastery in Dublin are described by J.T. Gilbert in
the _Fourth Report of the Royal Commission on Historical MSS._ W.F.
Skene catalogued the collection of MSS. in the Advocates' Library,
Edinburgh, a printed catalogue of which has been issued by D. Mackinnon
(Edinburgh, 1909; see also _Trans. Gaelic Soc. of Inverness_, xvi.
285-309).

In order to give some idea of the enormous extent of Irish MS. material
we may quote some calculations made by O'Curry, who states that if the
five oldest vellum MSS. were printed the result would be 9400 quarto
pages. Other vellum MSS. ranging in date from 1300 to 1600 would fill
9000 pages of the s