LEBOR NA HUIDREknown as Leabhar Mór Dúna Doighre, as it was in the
possession of a branch of that family who lived in
Duniry near Portumna in the sixteenth century. The
manuscript was compiled in the early fifteenth century,
before 1411, from sources in the midlands bordering
the river Shannon. Lorrha, in Co. Tipperary, Clonsost,
in County Offaly, and Clonmacnoise are named by the
scribe as places where he copied texts. This beautifully
written, well preserved book is almost certainly the work
of Murchadh Ó Cuindlis, a professional scribe who
also worked for the Mac Firbhisigh family and whose
hand has been identified in the Yellow Book of Lecan
and the Book of Lecan.
TheLeabhar Breacconsists almost entirely of reli-
gious texts except for “Cormac’s Glossary” (compiled
by or for Cormac mac Cuilennáin) and the “Histories
of Philip of Macedon and His Son Alexander the
Great.” One section is comprised of stories paraphrased
from the Bible, combined with legends and poems
such as the “Lament of the Mothers of Bethlehem”
and a version of the “Legend of the True Cross.”
Another large portion has accounts of the sufferings
of Christ, the apostles, and the martyrs. There are lives
of St. Patrick, St. Brigit, St. Colum Cille, and St. Martin
in the form of homilies and a version of the “Marty-
rology of Oengus.” One of the most important texts is
the witty “Vision of Mac Conglinne,” a comical satire
of monastic life and scholarship; the only complete
copy of it survives in Leabhar Breac. The manuscript
is written almost entirely in Irish with occasional pas-
sages in Latin.
The manuscript is one of the largest in terms of its
page size (40.5 cm ×28 cm) to survive from the period
and is also unusual in that it was written throughout
by one scribe. Among the marginal jottings are notes
that give useful information about the length of time
it took to write certain sections. It has been calculated
by Tomás Ó Concheannain that Ó Cuindlis wrote the
thirty-five pages (pp. 141–175) in about six weeks,
hence roughly one double column page per day. A note
mentions that he only managed to copy a single col-
umn another day, but this was a complicated transcrip-
tion of a fifty-two–line poem with interlinear glosses.
The scribe mentions incidental details of daily life,
such as the wonderful singing of a robin and the stray-
ing of the cat; in another part, the author describes
warfare in the area as Lorrha is plundered by local
magnate Murchad Ua Madagáin. But in common with
scribes in every age it is the weather, particularly the
cold, that is noted most frequently. On page 17, he
mentions a snowfall on the first of March; later he
remarks on the coincidence of his writing a homily on
St. Patrick on the eve of his feast day (March 17),
while the cold weather was again a problem some days
later: “twenty nights from today till Easter Monday,
and I am cold and weary without fire or covering”
(ÓLongáin 33).
The decoration in the Leabhar Breac is confined to
a series of colored capitals introducing various sec-
tions. In style these closely resemble the ribbon and
wire type initials found in twelfth century Irish manu-
scripts and which the scribe collected most probably
from different exemplars on his travels. In addition
there is an unusual and large drawing of the Menorah
candelabrium illustrating the “Story of the Children of
Israel” and a drawing of the crucifixion, which, stylis-
tically, is contemporary with the manuscript.
According to marginal jottings, the Mac Aodhagáin
family of Duniry, County Galway, had the manuscript
in their collection in the second half of the sixteenth
century until 1595 at least. In 1629, it was in the
nearby Franciscan friary of Kinalehin when Br Micheál
Ó Cléirigh copied a saint’s life from it, and the book
remained in the area until the end of the seventeenth
century. In the eighteenth century it was in the posses-
sion of the family of Conchur Ó Dálaigh (O’Daly) near
Mitchelstown, County Cork, who loaned it to Bishop
John O’Brien of Cloyne for use in the compilation of
his Irish Dictionary. In 1789, the O’Dalys sold the
manuscript to the Royal Irish Academy for £3. 13s 8d.
In 1876, the Academy published a lithographic facsim-
ile of Leabhar Breac based on the transcript of Joseph
O’Longan. The manuscript was restored and rebound
in 1973, and from 2003 a digitized copy may be viewed
online.
TIMOTHYO’NEILLReferences and Further Reading
O Concheanainn, Tomas. “The scribe of the Leabhar Breac”
Ériu, 24 (1973), 64-79.
Ó Longáin, Joseph. Leabhar Breac. A Lithographic Facsimile
by Joseph Ó Longáin. Edited by J. J. Gilbert. Dublin: Royal
Irish Academy, 1876.
See alsoDevotional and Liturgical Literature;
Hagiography and Martyrologies; Mac Aodhagáin;
Manuscript Illumination; ScriptoriaLEBOR NA HUIDRE
Lebor na hUidre(The Book of the Dun Cow) is the
earliest extant vernacular Irish manuscript. The frag-
mentary nature of seventeen of its thirty-seven texts
indicates that it has not come down to us in its com-
plete form, its surviving sixty-seven folios representing
approximately half the original codex, according to
Tomás Ó Concheanainn. Notwithstanding this, it con-
stitutes a veritable treasure trove of Old and Middle
Irish literature, both secular and religious, although the
original order in which the texts appeared can no