G 302

O'Reilly's Irish Writers

19th cent. Paper. 27 × 22 cms. Bound in three-quarters blue leather with `O'Reilly's Irish Writers' gilt-lettered and `23017' labelled on spine; `Phillipps MS 23017' inside front cover. Listed under `Rev. J. H. Todd MSS. ex Trin. Coll. Dublin' in Phillipps's Catalogus, Purchased by the National Library for £3 10s. from Sotheby (lot 261) 25 June 1936.

This is a printed copy of A Chronological Account of nearly four hundred Irish Writers (Dublin 1820) by Edward O'Reilly interleaved with annotations by J. H. Todd. It is bound in with a manuscript supplement of over 100 leaves containing an Index of Incipits and a general Index by Eóghan Ó Cómhraidhe (Eugene Curry) and dated 1841. An entry by Todd on the recto of the first endpaper and dated `Nov. 1. 1849' states that Richard Nugent of Farrenconnell House Mount Nugent lent him `an Irish MS, a vellum consisting of [blank] leaves, written at the end of the 14th or beginning of 15th cent. containing a collection of poems by the following bards, in a very good and regular hand' [here follows a list of 21 poets mainly of the O Daly and the Ó Cobhthaigh families] `The pages of the MS. are very ignorantly transposed; and it is imperfect at the end ...' This manuscript is now G 992.

Loosely inserted in this volume are three ruled Bifolia written by an unidentified hand on the recto only and containing a `short notice' of the `O'Donell M.S.' [i.e. G 167 above]. `Of the history of this manuscript subsequent to the time in which it was written' the following extract may be noted: `... on Dr. [Paul] O'Brien's death his manuscripts became the property of a Roman Catholic clergyman of the County of Meath, on whose death the manuscripts became the property of a gentleman with whom I had a close intimacy and by whom this volume the only one, unfortunately which was considered worthy of preservation - was presented to me, about twenty years ago'.