Note 14 — Chapter XL
Reading edition
It is a mere accident that this valuable work has survived. The only known copy of it is in the handwriting of Lughaidh's son Cucogry, and the book was unknown to O'Reilly when he compiled his "Irish Writers." It was handed down in the O'Clery family until it came to Patrick O'Clery who lent it to O'Reilly, the lexicographer, some time after 1817, and, O'Reilly dying, the book was sold at his auction in spite of the protests of poor O'Clery. It is now in the Royal Irish Academy and has been edited by the late Father Denis Murphy, S.J., in 1893, whose translation I have for the most part followed. The text of this biography would fill about 150 pages of this book.