Third in the series Codices Hibernenses Eximmii, the Book of Uí Mhaine is miscellaneous in content, comprising a wide range of texts in Old, Middle and Early Modern Irish, in prose and poetry, and covering a diverse range of genres from history to poetry, grammar to dindshenchas, glossaries to genealogies. Miscellaneous, however, should not necessarily be understood to mean random. Certain thematic clusters can be identified, and the layout and juxtaposition of texts appear to be both deliberate and meaningful. While the manuscript contains much that represents senchas, that is, the learned historical discourse of medieval Ireland, there is also much about the manuscript that is more innovative, not least ‘the free mixture and association of contemporary poetry and older poetry in a single book’. Many of the poems in the manuscript are of particular social or political importance, and a significant number of them are uniquely preserved in the Book of Uí Mhaine.
Elizabeth Boyle is Lecturer in Early Irish at Maynooth University. Her primary research interest is the intellectual and religious culture of early medieval Ireland, and she has also published on the history of Celtic Studies in the nineteenth century.
Ruairí Ó hUiginn MRIA is Senior Professor, School of Celtic Studies, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies. Professor Ó hUiginn received his doctorate from Queen's University, Belfast. He is the editor of Codices Hibernenses Eximii I: Lebor na hUidre (2015).
