Humanities Series

The Royal Irish Academy Library holds the world’s largest collection of Irish language manuscripts. Many of the late medieval and early modern Irish manuscripts preserved in the collections were long associated with particular learned families in Gaelic Ireland. The scholars who compiled these manuscripts produced fascinating cultural artefacts that are the key to understanding Gaelic scholarship and culture in the past. The manuscripts range across the full spectrum of medieval scholarship, with examples surviving of the work of members of the Gaelic learned class who specialised in law, medicine, history and poetry. Many of these same scholars also transcribed religious poems and texts, religious belief being integral to their world. Some of the most important manuscripts are miscellanies ─ the Book of Ballymote, the Book of Lecan, and the Book of Uí Mhaine ─ their contents reflecting many varied strands of medieval Gaelic learning. Behind every manuscript in the Academy collection lie the very real peop