BOOK OF LECAN: Leabhar Mór Mhic Fhirbhisigh Leacain.

With descriptive introduction and indexes by Kathleen Mulchrone. Facsimiles in collotype of Irish Manuscripts. Dublin: Published for the Commission by the Stationary Office of Saorstát Éireann, 1937. Imperial folio. pp. lxiii, [1], 315. Half dark blue morocco over linen boards, title in gilt direct on spine. Marbled endpapers. Some minor rubbing. A fine copy. Scarce.

Written in Irish mainly by Giolla Íosa Mac Firbisigh, assisted by Adam Ó Cuirnín and Murchad Riabach Ó Cuindlis, at Lecan (Castleforbes), County Sligo, under the patronage of the O’Dowds, Chieftains of Hy Fiachrach. It contains a large amount of genealogical material, especially relating to the families with which the Mac Firbisigh were associated, as well as historical, biblical and hagiographical material. Included are a Dindshenchas, Bansenchas, and versions of ‘Lebor Gabála’, ‘Uraicept na nÉces’, ‘Cóir Anmann’, and ‘Book of Rights’. In 1612 the manuscript was in the hands of Henry Perse, who numbered the leaves, and in 1636 it was seen by Míchéal Ó Cléirigh. It was part of Archbishop James Ussher’s library and was in Trinity College, Dublin in 1686 but was appropriated by Sir John Fitzgerald during James II’s occupation of Dublin in1698. It was removed to France and through the efforts of General Charles Vallancey the manuscript was presented in 1787 to the Royal Irish Academy by Abbé Kearney, Superior of the Irish College at Paris.