Rare Book & Collectors' Sale 1st & 2nd October 2025

60 IMPERFECTIONS NOT STATED Fonsie Mealy’s Est. 1934 Ceating (Dochtuir) [Keating, Dr. Geoffrey] . Forus Feasa ar Éirinn . An original 18th Century Scribal Manuscript Copy of Keating’s great work, ‘iar na scríobh chum úsáide [transcribed for the use of ] Eadbhard Denny Esquire. San mbliaghain DAois Chriost .. M.DCC, LXXIII [1773]. Quarto, xxxx, 472 numbered pages, [viii (index)], on heavy laid paper throughout, a.e.r., purple silk marker, text in brown ink in an elegant and easily legible scribal Gaelic hand, headings and initials mostly in red; fine contemporary binding of full polished morocco, covers bordered with a row of gilt shamrock tools, spine in six panels richly gilt, with morocco title label in second, ‘KEATING’S / HISTORY OF / IRELAND’. The blank preliminary leaf signed by a quartet of distinguished scholars, J[ohn] O’Donovan, J.H. Todd, E[ugene] Curry and Pádraig Ua Duinnín [the lexicographer, who himself edited Keating’s History for the Irish Texts Society]. Pencil note probably in O’Donovan’s hand, ‘This collated with the Ms in Rome’. Also signed on a rear blank by ‘Thomatius Connellan’, with a Latin motto dated ‘secundo dii Maii 1842’. Laid in at rear are documents including an ALS on RIA headed notepaper dated 1 April 1910 from [Fr.] P.S. Ó Duinnín [Dinneen] [recipient obliterated] saying he can be found ‘any day you come to town’ at the National Library Reading Room. ‘I shall be glad of course to examine your Keating’; also original ALS from a London bookseller, 1910, ‘We are reserving the Mss for you. We had an order for it from the Cambridge University but are giving you the preference’; also printed publicity material for a Brussels exhibition, 1910, at which the manuscript may have been exhibited. A magnificent volume, which it is a privilege to handle. Keating’s great work was not printed in its original Gaelic until the Irish Texts Society’s edition (completed by Dinneen in 1908-14) began in 1902; until then, anyone wanting to study the original work had to seek a scribal transcript such as the present item. There were many such transcripts; Dinneen says (1908), ‘There are more complete copies of the work extant than of any other work in the Irish language of the same length’. And what a copy this is, endorsed and signed by the cream of 19th Century Irish and Gaelic scholars, by O’Donovan, O’Curry, Todd, Dinneen, and Connellan. Edward Denny, for whose use it was transcribed, came of a well-known Kerry family, based at Tralee Castle, said to have been benevolent landlords [see D.I.B.]. His son of the same name became a leading member of the Plymouth Brethren. Keating’s History is now regarded by scholars as uncritical and unreliable, but it remains the first systematic attempt to record Irish history from the earliest days to Keating’s own time in the 16th century, from the sources available to the compiler. There are many extant scribal copies (probably a dozen or more), but almost all are securely lodged in public collections. There is unlikely to be another opportunity in our lifetimes to acquire a similar item. In fine contemporary leather binding and gild decorated spine. As a m/ss, w.a.f. €15,000 - €20,000 513. Important 18th Century Gaelic Scribal Manuscript