A late 15th-century Irish vellum manuscript, which was written in West Cork, Ireland for Fínghin Mac Carthaigh Riabhach at some time between his accession to the Lordship of Carbery in 1478 and the death of his wife, Caitilín, in 1506. The Book of Lismore contains some of the greatest masterpieces of medieval Irish literature. Donated to University College Cork by the Trustees of the Chatsworth Settlement, with the assistance of the Friends of the National Libraries.
THE BOOK OF LISMORE AND FNL’S SCHEDULE 3 STATUS
During 2020 FNL received an exceptional, restricted gift in kind, with a value of £500,000, from the Chatsworth Settlement in the form of The Book of Lismore, a 15th century medieval Irish decorated manuscript and considered one of the Great Books of Ireland. The Book was compiled for Fínghin Mac Carthaigh, the Lord of Carbery from 1478 to 1505. It consists of 198 large vellum folios containing some of medieval Irish literature’s greatest masterpieces. Crónán Ó Doibhlin discusses the Book of Lismore’s significance below.
Since the 1640s The Book of Lismore has belonged to the Cavendish family, Dukes of Devonshire, and their ancestors: it was kept at Lismore Castle, Co. Waterford, and more recently at Chatsworth House in Derbyshire. The Trustees of the Chatsworth Settlement donated the Book to University College Cork in recognition of academic and curatorial expertise at the university, and in appreciation of a very long and fruitful partnership between the Cavendish family and the University.
FNL was involved because it is one of a very limited number of bodies listed in Schedule 3 of the Inheritance Tax Act 1984. As such FNL can facilitate gifts to eligible institutions of previously exempted works of art without giving rise to a tax charge on the donor family, and it can enable acquisitions by eligible institutions of artefacts accepted in lieu of Inheritance Tax. FNL received the manuscript as a restricted gift and gave it in turn to the UCC Educational Foundation, a UK registered charity established for the benefit of University College Cork.
FNL last used its Schedule 3 status in 2015 when it was awarded an exceptional grant of £583,920 from the National Heritage Memorial Fund in order to facilitate the acquisition by the Brontë Parsonage Museum, Haworth, of the original Brontë family dining table: FNL then paid that sum to the vendor of the table.
The Trustees of FNL are delighted to have been asked to play its part in enabling the Chatsworth Settlement to make a gift of The Book of Lismore to University College Cork.
Crónán Ó Doibhlin, Head of Research Collections, writes:
The Book of Lismore, or The Book of Mac Carthaigh Riabhach, created in the late 15th century, is a major medieval manuscript, created at Kilbrittain, Co. Cork, in a golden age of Irish literature, and is rightly considered as one of the Great Books of Ireland.
It consists of 198 large vellum folios, and contains important texts, many drawn from Irish tradition and others that are translations of contemporary European works. The Book reflects an Ireland that was deeply engaged with the contemporary European culture of the time.
It begins with religious-themed material, mainly lives of the Irish saints and apocryphal tales associated with them, before passing on to material in translation: the History of the Lombards and the Conquests of Charlemagne.
The Book also contains the only surviving translation in Irish of the travels of Marco Polo, which adds to the exotic, outward-looking ambience of the manuscript. Marco Polo is followed by a collection of native, secular texts dealing with the theme of Kingship. The Book concludes with the exploits of the popular mythological hero Fionn mac Cumhaill and the Fianna, as told in the lengthy tale known as Agallamh na Seanórach.
Its contents are comprehensive in their representation of both religious and secular learning in the Irish language as preserved and promoted by the elite learned classes of late medieval Ireland. In its design and execution, and in its combination of native and European tradition, The Book of Lismore is a library of literature that makes a self-assured statement about aristocratic literary taste in autonomous Gaelic Ireland in the late 15th century.
The Book of Lismore will eventually be displayed in a Treasures Gallery that UCC plans to develop in its Boole Library. This publicly accessible gallery will display items from the University collections, serving as an attractive destination for visitors to the region. The Trustees of the Chatsworth Settlement have made the very generous decision to donate The Book of Lismore to UCC in recognition of academic and curatorial expertise at the university, and in appreciation of a very long and fruitful partnership between the Cavendish Family and UCC.
University College Cork and The Trustees of the Chatsworth Settlement would like to recognise the generous support of the Friends of the National Libraries (UK) in making the donation to UCC possible. The Book of Lismore will now form the foundation for the coordinated study of the Gaelic manuscript – text, script and structural components – in UCC at undergraduate and postgraduate levels.
University College Cork (UCC) is Ireland’s leading centre for the study of the materiality of the literary artefacts of Gaelic Ireland. The Book of Lismore will now be the centerpiece of a large collection of Gaelic manuscripts at UCC’s Library, and the donation of the manuscript to UCC marks a further stage in the commitment of the Cavendish Family to the scholarship of The Book of Lismore.
The spectroscopic study in UCC of vellums and inks in Irish manuscripts has recently received national recognition through a substantial Advanced Laureate award to Professor Pádraig Ó Macháin from the Irish Research Council. This is frontier research into which The Book of Lismore, with its vellum and Gaelic script, will fit perfectly as a research target, further enhancing the research infrastructure and output of Modern Irish studies in the University. At the levels of the undergraduate and postgraduate student, therefore, and at the level of the senior researcher, the donation of The Book of Lismore to UCC by Trustees of the Chatsworth Settlement is already revolutionising humanities research and teaching in the University.
The Book of Lismore encapsulates an important part of the cultural heritage of Cork, Munster and Ireland. Like other surviving manuscripts in Irish, it illustrates the multi-layered histories and traditions of our past.
The manuscript is also significant for its place in the Irish manuscript and scribal traditions. This unique book illustrates how an object can be subject to the cultural, social, and political interactions between two neighbouring countries, in this case, Ireland and Great Britain.
