Catalogue of the Irish Manuscripts in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin (Classic Reprint)

Book excerpt: Excerpt from Catalogue of the Irish Manuscripts in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin The history of our Library from the foundation of the College has been sketched in outline by Dr. I. K. Ingram, in his Address to the Congress of Librarians, and by Dr. T. K. Abbott, in the Book of Trinity College, and again in the preface to his General Catalogue of our Mss. Both have given some interesting parti culars as to the history of our collection of manuscripts, but we have as yet no detailed study of its origin and growth. It may be worth while to put together here in a few pages what can be learned as to the provenance of our Irish mss., with which alone this volume is concerned. I shall confine myself to inquiring when and how they came into our Library; what is known as to the earlier history ofeach manuscript will be found in the description of each under its number, or in the literature there quoted. Until quite recently no continuous official record was kept of acquisitions by gift or purchase. We possess indeed several volumes oflibrary Minutes, extending from 1786 onward, the earlier part of which, down to 1821, we owe mainly to the eccentric but industrious Dr. John Barrett, who was Librarian during most of that period. I have searched these Minutes carefully and gleaned some stray details, but they are mainly occupied with Library routine.' Our main source of information is the series of Catalogues of mss. Which are now to be described, supplemented by what we can learn from the manuscripts themselves. Ti23 Catalogues. - Those that concern us (setting aside some which only deal with printed books) are. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.