Lebor na hUidre, or the Book of the Dun Cow, is the oldest Irish manuscript to contain primarily native narrative materials. It includes stories from the Ulster Cycle (including the oldest version of Táin Bó Cúailnge), Fenian Cycle, Mythological Cycle and Historical Cycle of Irish mythology, as well as religious and historical texts. It is held in the Royal Irish Academy. It is badly damaged: only 67 leaves remain, and many of the texts are incomplete. A manuscript (Latin manu scriptus, written by hand), strictly speaking, is any written document that is put down by hand, in contrast to being printed or reproduced some other way. ... The Ulster Cycle, formerly the Red Branch Cycle, is a large body of prose and verse centering around the traditional heroes of the Ulaid in what is now eastern Ulster. ... The Táin Bó Cúailnge, or Cattle Raid of Cooley, is the central tale in the Ulster Cycle, one of the four great cycles that make up the surviving corpus of Irish mythology. ... The Fenian Cycle also known as the Fionn Cycle, Finn Cycle, Fianna Cycle, Finnian Tales, Fian Tales, Féinne Cycle, Feinné Cycle, Ossianic Cycle and Fianaigecht, is a body of prose and verse centering on the exploits of the mythic hero Fionn mac Cumhaill and his warriors the Fianna Éireann. ... The Mythological Cycle is one of the four major cycles of Irish mythology, and is so called because it represents the remains of the pagan mythology of pre-Christian Ireland, although the gods and supernatural beings have been euhemerised by their Christian redactors into historical kings and heroes. ... Cycle of the Kings, also known as the Kings Cycle or the Historical Cycle is a body of Old and Middle Irish Literature. ... The mythology of pre-Christian Ireland did not entirely survive the conversion to Christianity, but much of it was preserved, shorn of its religious meanings, in medieval Irish literature, which represents the most extensive and best preserved of all the branches of Celtic mythology. ... The Royal Irish Academy (RIA) is one of Irelands premier learned societies and cultural institutions. ...

It was created in the monastery of Clonmacnoise, County Offaly, and is the work of three scribes. Máel Muire mac Célechair (designated "M") and a second scribe (designated "A") wrote the original manuscript, working in tandem. Máel Muire is known from Irish annals to have died in a Viking raid on Clonmacnoise in 1106 CE, giving us a latest possible date for the main body of the manuscript. A third scribe, designated "H", added a number of new texts and passages, sometimes over erased portions of the original, sometimes on new leaves, probably in the later 12th or 13th Century, and presumably before 1359 when the manuscript was used to ransom several members of the O'Donnell family of Donegal who had been captured by Cathal Óg O'Connor of Sligo. Clonmacnoise viewed from the River Shannon The monastery of Clonmacnoise (Cluain Mhic Nóis in Irish, meaning Meadow of the Sons of Nós) is situated in County Offaly, Ireland on the River Shannon south of Athlone Foundation Clonmacnoise was founded in 545 by Saint Ciaran at the point where... County Offaly (Irish: Uíbh Fhailí) is a county in Leinster, Ireland, bordered by seven other counties: Galway, Roscommon, Westmeath, Meath, Kildare, Laois, and Tipperary. ... Annals are a form of historical writing which record events year by year. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... Events September 28 - Henry I of England defeats his older brother Robert Curthose, duke of Normandy, at the Battle of Tinchebrai, and imprisons him in Cardiff Castle; Edgar Atheling and William Clito are also taken prisoner. ... ODonnell is an ancient and powerful Irish clan, lords of Tyrconnel in early times, and the chief rivals of the ONeills in Ulster. ... Donegal (Dún na nGall in Irish) is a town in County Donegal, Ireland. ... Sligo (Sligeach in Irish) is the county town of County Sligo in the Republic of Ireland. ...

External links

• The text of the manuscript as edited by R I Best and O Bergin
• The contents of the manuscript, with translations of most of the texts
• Royal Irish Academy