Lectures on The Manuscript Materials of Ancient Irish History. Delivered at the Catholic University of Ireland, during the Sessions of 1855 and 1856. Dublin: James Duffy, 1861. First Edition. Pp, xxviii, 722, with 61 pages of manuscript facsimiles. Handsomely bound full dark green Morocco, spine with raised bands, ruled in gilt; inner dentelles & marbled endpapers. Housed in a cloth slipcase. Light browning to text, otherwise a very good copy.

Contains 21 lectures in all, with appendices and general index.

Professor Eugene O’Curry, (1794-1862), was one of the major figures in Irish manuscript studies and his work is still one of the basic resources for the subject. He was responsible for cataloguing and transcribing many of the surviving manuscripts in both the Royal Irish Academy and the British Museum. A self-taught man and with little or no classical knowledge, was one of Ireland’s most energetic workers. Scarcely an Irish book was to be found which he did not read and scarcely a rare manuscript existed in private hands of which he did not make a copy. In this way he gained an outlook over the field of Irish literature, so full and so far-reaching that though strides have been made in scientific scholarship since his day, no one has come ever near him since in his all-round knowledge of the literature of Ireland.