Annals of Inisfallen island in Kerry dating back to 12th century on loan to UCC from University of Oxford

Records of medieval life on the island, which has yet to be excavated, on display at the Glucksman Gallery this month

From left: James Knoblauch, organiser; Martin Kauffmann, Oxford medievalist and Bodleian Library head; Finbarr Kennelly, organiser, Killarney Chamber of Tourism and Commerce; and Mike Webb, curator of early modern archives and manuscripts at Bodleian Libraries, on Inisfallen Island. Picture: Valerie O'Sullivan

The island of Inisfallen, associated with the most important medieval record of Munster, was "a royal church island", rather than simply a monastic island, a conference has heard.

Gifted to the State more than 50 years ago by the American McShain family, the important site has yet to be excavated.

The location — just off the shoreline of Lough Léín — was not a remote island hermitage in the way Skellig Michael would have been, but in the centre of the 7th century kingdom of the Eoghanacht Locha Léin.

Hospice care and end-of-life reflection would have most likely taken place for up to seven centuries and the annals themselves detail various deaths of high-ranking clergy and laity.

“One of the functions of a royal church island is as a royal cemetery,” historian Edel Breathnach said.

There was “an otherworldliness” associated with the sites of Eoghanachta — rulers of Killarney and West Cork until their defeat by the North Kerry Ciarraige in the early 9th century, historian Paul McCotter said.

The conference marks the loan of the annals from the Bodleian library in Oxford, where they have been held since 1755, to UCC, where they are on display in the Glucksman Gallery during October.

Scholars from Cambridge, Oxford, UCC and TCD gathered at Killarney House for the conference.

No excavation has been undertaken of the now State-owned Inisfallen, and a survey of what is believed to have been a 13th-century Augustinian church is also needed, the conference was told.

There have been few finds. And there is no estimate of the number of persons buried there.

A number of other monasteries were also home to these annals. Covering local, world and Irish politics and events, they finish in the 15th century.

Much of the entries are contemporary and compiled in the Killarney island’s scriptorium (a raid by the O’Donoghues in 1180 details the carrying off of skins, or hides for vellum, gold, while the books themselves were left).

“From the 12th century at the very latest, the annals find a very restful home here until the 17th century. So it is fitting you should continue to call them the annals of Inisfallen and consider this beautiful place their home,” the Cambridge medievalist researcher Máíre Ní Mhaonaigh said.

As well as being passed around the different Munster monasteries, they contain Latin, Irish and Ogham.

The annals are a treasure trove of linguistic forms, including of local Munster Irish, the conference heard.

A type of bilingual or code-switching writing — switching seamlessly mid sentence between Latin and Irish is employed.

“They are invaluable as a repository of contemporary Irish,” UCC’s Ken Ó Donnchú said.

The type of ink used included oak gall and soot, and the scripts include majuscule, minuscule and Anglo-Norman from around 1180. Just one capital is decorated.

Mostly written in prose, poetry includes an example of the highly stylised dán díreach of the time.

The Inisfallen conference is to be an annual event in Killarney House, Pat Dawson, regional manager with the NPWS announced. 

There was a unique association with Killarney House. 

The uncle of Fexco founder Brian McCarthy, major sponsors of the exhibition in UCC, was Johnny McCarthy, chairman of the OPW, who was central to the negotiations with the McShain family that saw Inisfallen island gifted to the nation, Mr Dawson said.