Matheson Collection > Gleanings from Irish manuscripts

GLEANINGS FROM IRISH MANUSCRIPTS
medical learning in the sixteenth century is very-
valuable. They illustrate the life and methods of
the men of the profession in that age, they show
how patronage was extended to them by the
native and Pale gentry of Leinster, and they shed
important sidelights upon family and local
history connected with the same province. I
shall give an explanation of the various personal
and other references they contain in the form of
notes on the translation which is appended to
each extract as it occurs.
The first of the two MSS. we are concerned
with is numbered 3C19. It was written in
1590 by Richard O Connor, an Ossory man,
who, as we learn from a note by a later hand,
died on October 18, 1625. The other book is
a little earlier in point of date, having been
compiled in South Leinster in 1577-8 by a
scribe named Core O Cadhla, or Core O Kiely.
A large proportion of the better known Irish
MSS. of the fourteenth or fifteenth centuries
were written in the provinces of Connacht or
Munster ; for example, the Books of Ballymote
and Lecan and the Leabhar Breac came from the
western part of the country, while the Book
of Lismore came from the South. Our MSS.
cannot compare with these tomes for variety and
value of contents; but at the same time it is
gratifying to be able to show by their witness
that the eastern province was not unrepresented
on the literary side in the later ages of Gaelic
culture and learning.
124