Writer sheds light on ancient book

THE historic Book of Lismore was compiled at the Franciscan Monastery in Timoleague, and not in Waterford, as its title might indicate.

Michael Slavin explains in his new work The Ancient Books of Ireland that it is generally accepted the manuscript was written in the West Cork abbey.

He traces the book’s history since it was completed about 1480 as a wedding present to Finghin MacCarthy Reagh, leader of the Cork sept of the MacCarthy family.