The Invasion of Nemed

Abstract

THE text which is here for the first time published' and translated is preserved in H.2.15a (1316), a MS of the fourteenth century in the library of Trinity College, Dublin.2 Unfortunately on account of the loss of leaves, the beginning is wanting and the outer margin of the folio which contains the narrative is badly frayed and rent at the top, so that at times letters are no longer legible.' But in spite of these lacunae and the corrupt state in which this account has been transmitted by successive scribes, the context is intelligible enough; for the missing portion must doubtless have contained a description of Conang's defeat by the descendants of Nemed, since the present acephalous fragment commences with a speech of exhortation by Morc mac Deiled to his followers who had come to aid Conang against the Nemedians. If the modern recensions by Keating4 and MicheIl 0 Cleirigh5 are an adequate criterion, the events here related make it more than probable that this text is derived from the still unpublished Lebor Gabdla. Whether, however, it is directly taken from that historical compilation or represents a later conflated version, as the last paragraph seems to indicate, must be left to the time when all the extant MSS of the