Maynooth, University Library MS C110
Deborah Hayden
Figure 1: Maynooth, University Library MS C110, p. 5: a colophon recording the name and place of writing of the scribe.
This codex is a collection of 32 vellum leaves from various sources, most of which date to the fifteenth century and contain medical, astronomical and philosophical material. The first fourteen pages are written primarily in the hand of Eoin Ó Callanáin, who notes on p. 5 (see Figure 1), after he has completed his Irish translation of the Speculum medicinae by the famed physician Arnaldus de Villa Nova (c. 1240–1311), that he began this work in ‘Cill Breatain’ (Cill Briotáin/Kilbrittain, Co. Cork) under the tutelage of his master, Piaras Ó hUallacháin, when Domhnall Riabhach Mac Cárthaigh was still alive but on his death-bed. This Domhnall was likely the lord of Cairbre who assumed power after he treacherously killed his uncle, Cormac Donn MacCarthy, in 1366. Eoin Ó Callanáin then finished his text in ‘Ros Oilitri’ (Ros Ailithir/Rosscarbery, Co. Cork) on the 15th of May 1414, noting that ‘it was completed both as to translation and writing down’ (do crichnaiged a tarrang agus a sgribhadh) just after Domhnall’s death, thus providing a more precise date for the corroborating account of this event in the Annals of the Four Masters (s.a. 1414.6). A single leaf that was formerly the conjugate of pp. 1-2 of C110 is now found in Dublin, TCD MS H 5. 27 (1398/71), a collection of papers formerly belonging to the antiquarian John O’Donovan, who notes that the leaf formed part of a medical manuscript given to him by the Irish scholar Eugene O’Curry.
Further Reading:
- Abbott, T. K. and E. J. Gwynn (1921), Catalogue of the Irish Manuscripts in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin (Dublin: Hodges, Figgis & Co), pp. 262-3
- McVaugh, Michael (1970), ‘Arnald of Villanova’, Dictionary of Scientific Biography, vol. 1 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons), pp. 289-91
- Ó Fiannachta, Pádraig (1966), ‘An O’Donovan source’, Irish Ecclesiastical Record 105.2: 127-8
- Ó Fiannachta, Pádraig (1969), Lámhscríbhinní Gaeilge, Choláiste Phádraig, Má Nuad: Clár, vol. 6 (Maynooth: An Sagart)