Dublin, National Library of Ireland MS G8
Siobhán Barrett
Fig. 1: Dublin, National Library of Ireland MS G8, p. 29: The opening lines of the Aphorisms of Hippocrates, with the heading: ‘[A]men Amen an tinnscadal ar leabor Eumainn hi Bolgaoi’ (image courtesy of Irish Script on Screen)
This manuscript is also known as ‘The Book of Éumann Ó Bolgaoi’ after its main scribe, who signed and dated it in 1548. A second scribe, ‘Gillpfadraig’, refers to Éumann Ó Bolgaoi as ‘Eamonn dub’ or ‘Black Eamonn’ on the last line of p. 34. One of the locations where this manuscript was written is named as Bodosdoig, or Woodstock near Athy, Co Kildare, which 80 years earlier, in 1468, was also the place of writing of another Irish medical manuscript, Dublin, NLI MS G11, by Donnchadh Ó Bolgaidi (see the Manuscript of the Month entry for January 2024). Another surname, ‘Ó Cuileamhan’, is also found in both of these manuscripts: Uilliam Ó Cuileamhan is one of the scribes of G8, and in 1521 Seadhon Ó Cuileamhan claims to be the owner of G11. The remaining two named scribes are Uilliam Ó Cléirigh and Sean Ó Cléirigh. In the seventeenth century, Mícheál Ó Cléirigh and Cú Choigríche Ó Cléirigh were two of the writers of the famous Annals of the Four Masters, and this manuscript, NLI MS G8, is the only surviving medical manuscript written by an Ó Cléirigh scribe (See also Ó Muraile 2016: 97 and Ní Shéaghdha 1967: 42).
Nessa Ní Shéaghdha described this small manuscript of 206 pages, measuring 14cm x 20.3cm, as ‘…a pocket-size medical encyclopaedia, containing texts, in a digested form, on almost every branch of medicine and medico-philosophy. It was perhaps intended as a teacher’s note-book written with the collaboration of a whole medical school’ (Ní Shéaghdha 1967: 42). This scholarly book contains many collections of definitions, usually extracted from longer treatises, such as Bernard of Gordon’s Lilium Medicinae, Petrus de Argellata’s De Chirugia, and Anathomia Gydo, the Irish version of the first two doctrines of Guy de Chauliac’s De Anathomia. The longest text in this manuscript is an Irish translation of the Aphorisms of Hippocrates. Other texts in the collection include medico-philosophical treatises; an Irish translation of extracts from a text called De Gradibus explaining the four degrees by which materia medica are classified; a tract on the zodiac; an Irish translation of a text on the development of the embryo called De Generatione Embryonis; and a list of philosophers and medical men beginning with Avicenna and ending with Ypocras (Hippocrates).
Fig. 2: Dublin, National Library of Ireland MS G 8, p. 89. The date and name of the scribe are written upside-down: Anno Domini an tan do crichnaigidh so 1548. Misi Eumann et tabhradh gach aon oirbi ar m’anum (image courtesy of Irish Script on Screen)
Further reading:
- Bhreathnach, Edel and Bernadette Cunningham, eds (2007), Writing Irish History: The Four Masters and Their World (Dublin: Wordwell)
- Ní Ghallchobhair, Eithne, ed. and trans. (2014), Anathomia Gydo (London: Irish Texts Society)
- Ní Shéaghdha, Nessa (1967), Catalogue of Irish Manuscripts in the National Library of Ireland, Fasciculus I (Dublin: DIAS), pp. 41–57
- O’Donovan, John, ed. and trans (1856), Annala Rioghachta Eireann: Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland, by the Four Masters, 7 vols (Dublin: Hodges Smith)
- Ó Muraile, Nollaig (2016), ‘The Hereditary Medical Families of Gaelic Ireland’, in Rosa Anglica: Reassessments, ed. by Liam P. Ó Murchú, Irish Texts Society Subsidiary Series 28 (London: Irish Texts Society), pp. 85–113
- Shaw, Francis (1940), ‘Medieval Medico-Philosophical Treatises in the Irish Language’, in Féil-Sgríbhinn Eóin Mhic Néill: Essays and Studies Presented to Professor Eoin MacNeill, on the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday, May 15th 1938, ed. by John Ryan (Dublin: Four Courts Press), pp. 144–57
- Thanisch, Eystein (2025), ‘Knowing through Defining: Collections of Scientific Definitions in Gaelic Medical Manuscripts’, in Medicine in the Medieval North Atlantic World: Vernacular Texts and Traditions, ed. by Deborah Hayden and Sarah Baccianti (Turnhout: Brepols), pp. 337–64
- Walsh, Paul (1935), ‘The O Clerys of Tirconnell’, Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review 24 (93): 244–62