Ach ach, as tind ar toirrthimm: Murchadh’s Commentary to the Félire Óengusso, and how it can cause Sleepless Nights

Description

The Commentary to the Félire Óengusso as we find it in Leabhar Breac is the only manuscript version out of nine witnesses that has been edited (almost) in full by Whitley Stokes (1880). This edition, however, does not quite capture the bewildering lay-out and structure of the Commentary in this manuscript: glosses and scholia have been added to each folio in a seemingly haphazard fashion, sometimes appearing pages away from the lemma they are supposed to illuminate. This lay-out raises questions about the exemplar Murchadh Ó Cuindlis was working with, about the way in which he copied the material, and about the usage he envisioned for it. My paper will attempt to answer these questions, using the other eight witnesses of the Commentary for comparison.

Stokes, Whitley. 1880. ‘On the Calendar of Oengus’, The Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy: Irish Manuscript Series, 1: 1–352.

Period	28 Apr 2023
Event title	The Leabhar Breac Conference
Event type	Conference
Location	Dublin, IrelandShow on map