Irish and Latin variants of the title ‘the Book of Sligo’ are attested in a number of sources from the 15th and 17th centuries. Its identity cannot be established beyond doubt nor is it necessarily true that the references are all to the same manuscript. Pádraig Ó Riain (CGSH, p. lii) has shown that those at least that can be dated to the 17th century refer to the Book of Lecan (Co. Sligo): these are James Ussher’s quotation of a triad about ‘St Patrick’s three Wednesdays’ and a Latin note added (by Ussher?) to a copy of the Vita sancti Declani which credits the Liber Sligunt as the source for a copy of the genealogies of Irish saints. There are two 15th-century mentions by the Irish title Leabhar Sligigh: one by the scribe of Aided Díarmata meic Cerbaill (first recension) in Egerton 1782, who acknowledges the Leabhar Sligig as having been the exemplar of his text; and an honourable co-mention, with Saltair Caisil, in a poem on the king of Tír Conaill, beg. Dimghach do Chonall Clann Dálaigh. Aided Díarmata is not found in the Book of Lecan, at least in the form in which it survives today. Ó Riain allows for the possibility that ‘the Book of Sligo’ “is indeed a lost codex whose name was mistakenly applied in the seventeenth century, perhaps by Ussher, to the well-known Book of Lecan”.
A manuscript now lost but used by Mícheál Ó Cléirigh as an exemplar for the Life of Mo Ling in Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale de Belgique, MS 4190-4200, f. 53v: I nAthcliath do scriobad as Leabhur Tighe Molling. Ocus léiccim Moling atá il-Laidin i muinigin na mbrathar Ccléirigh cidh im Cléirich-sa féin .15. juil. 1628 (‘In Dublin (this) has been copied out of the Book of Timulling. And I leave Moling's miracles, which are in Latin, in trust of the friars Clery, though I myself am a Clery, 15 July, 1628’ - ed. and tr. by Stokes).
Irish computus manuscript (7 folia) dated 1589, mainly in the hand of Tomás Ó hIcidhe. A detached folio which belongs with this manuscript is f. 63 of London, British Library, MS Cotton Galba A v.
- 1589
- Tomás Ó hIcidhe, Eoin Ó Callannáin, Diarmaid Ó Callannáin
Fragments from a composite English manuscript which suffered severe losses and damage in the Ashburnham House fire of 23 October 1731. About two thirds of the manuscript was destroyed.
- s. xi–xii
- Matthew Parker
Early English manuscript containing a Latin Life of St Ælfheah of Cantebury written by the monk Osbern, together with a narrative text about the translation of his remains.
- s. xi2
- s. xiiiex
- s. xii2/4
Compilation esp. of canon law and penitentials.
- s. ix4/4/x1/4
Four leaves of material relating to early Irish law, notably extracts from the so-called E-version of Bretha éitgid. The leaves were taken from a manuscript, described by William O'Sullivan as ‘The book of Cairbre mac Domhnaill Uí Dheoradháin’, fragments of which survive elsewhere (RIA 23 Q 6).
- s. xv/xvi
Four leaves of material relating to early Irish law, notably extracts from the so-called A-version of Bretha éitgid. The leaves were taken from a manuscript, described by William O’Sullivan as ‘The book of Dáibhídh Ó Súilleabháin Bán’, fragments of which survive elsewhere (RIA D v 2).
- s. xv/xvi