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[O’Reilly Edward, attrib. ]. 1815-25 Unique manuscript list of writers in the Irish Language.
Alphabetical List of Irish Writers whose Works in Irish are still extant in Verse or Prose. Folio, manuscript, 58 numbered
pages (last few blank), on laid paper watermarked ‘G R 1814’, contemp. green papered boards, in a recent folding case.
Marked on title page ‘Phillipps Ms. 10259’. A previous owner, the historian P.S. O’Hegarty, has attributed the work ten-
tatively to the lexicographer Edward O’Reilly.
The manuscript is fluently written in ink in both Irish (old script) and English. It includes valuable biographical and
literary details of some 500 writers, from the earliest times down to about 1680. For example it includes under H the
poet Eochaidh O Heoghusa, ‘lived 1630’, with a long list of his poems; under D, O Dugan, John, ‘chief poet to the O’Kel-
lys of Ibh Maine, died A.D. 1372’; about 30 entries under O’Daly, including ‘Goffrey fionn, died A.D. 1508’, with a short
list of his poems (some corrected or deleted); under B, ‘Beinin, St, wrote (as it is said but which I do not believe), the
Leabhr na ccert’, etc. There are extended entries on Annalists, Book of Ballymote, etc. There are various corrections and
interpolations, and clearly the manuscript was a work in progress over a period of years. It runs alphabetically from
A to U, with a second alphabetical series starting on p. 35. Edward O’Reilly (1770-1829) moved from Cavan to Dublin
about 1790. He was assistant secretary to the Iberno-Celtic Society, and worked in the library of Trinity College, pre-
paring catalogues of manuscripts. In 1817 he published a major Irish-English Dictionary, ‘containing upwards of 20,000
words that never appeared in any former Irish lexicon’. In 1820 he published a Chronological Account of Nearly 400
Irish Writers, for which the present manuscript may have provided the source material.An important document, and a
rare opportunity to acquire a manuscript from the celebrated Phillipps Collection of Sir Thomas Phillipps (1792-1872),
dispersed in sections after his death over a long period. At its height the collection included about 60,000 manu-
scripts, from all languages and cultures.
13_ x 8_in. (34.29 x 21.59cm)
Estimate €4,000-€6,000 £2940-£4410
Large Image & Place Bid 409410
Ray, James. A Compleat History of the Rebellion.
from its first Rise, in 1745, to its total Suppression at the glorious Battle of Culloden, in April, 1746. Bristol, printed by S.
Farley and Comp., 1752.
Estimate €100-€150 £70-£110
Large Image & Place Bid 410