Catalogue of Gaelic Manuscripts in the National Library of Scotland
Adv. MS 73.5.1
Irish Grammar.
Summary Catalogue of Advocates’ Manuscripts (1971), p.44. 82 ff. Quarto. Written by Aodh Ó Dálaigh (Hugo Daly) for Paris Anderson, a student of Trinity College, Dublin, 1734-5. Cf. also Pádraig Ó Macháin, "A Gaelic link with Paris Anderson", Ossory, Laois and Leinster 5 (2012), 234-239, where this manuscript is described.
Bookseller's inscription on f. 1r: “£3.0.0. Irish Grammar. 1734. Written by one Daly a Conaught Man for Paris Anderson, A.M.T.C.D. 1734”, copied in part from Paris Anderson's own inscription, which appears on f. 2r. "Hugo Daly his book" appears on the back paste-down. A subsequent owner signed on f. 82v (obliterated), "Owien Luin be his hand and his Book / Ogen O luan et aige". Ó Macháin, op. cit. p. 239, suggests that this may have been Dr. Owen Lloyd, professor of Divinity at Trinity College Dublin and Paris Anderson's teacher, and that Lloyd may have acquired the book from Ó Daly, in whose hands it remained after Anderson had left.
The volume is possibly one of two Gaelic grammars stated in 1806 to be in the possession of a Dr Wright, Edinburgh (Poems of Ossian in the original Gaelic, 3 vols., London 1807, vol. 3, p. 572). If so, this was probably Dr. William Wright, a medical doctor who was born in Crieff in 1735 and died in Edinburgh in 1819. In 1760 he was on a military campaign which took him to Ireland, and once settled in Edinburgh, he also went on yearly tours through the Highlands to see friends and family, some of them Gaelic scholars. He was a close friend of the Rev. Dr John Stewart of Luss, and a relative of the Rev. Joseph Macintyre of Glenorchy. The volume was in the Highland Society of Scotland's archive by 1813, when it appears as no.4 of an inventory now Ingliston MS. A.iv.22; “Invy No.4” is inscribed on the cover. Lent successively for dictionary work to Rev. Dr. John MacLeod, Ewen MacLachlan and Rev. Dr. Mackintosh MacKay; MacLachlan’s hand appears at f. 2r in a note referring to Adv.MS.72.1.38. Transferred in 1962 from NLS Printed Books Department. Vellum-covered board binding.
f.
2r Ó Duinn, Giolla na Naomh. Aoibhin sin Eire ard, 5 qq. only. Cf. TCD MS 1291, also written by Hugh O'Daly in 1755, which includes 94 stt of the same work beg. f. 56v, copied apparently from TCD MS.1378 (Cf. Abbott & Gwynn: 233). Cf. also NLS Adv.MS.72.1.38, p. 171.
3r Version of the anonymous 'Louvain Grammar', beg. Ablitir na tengan Gaoidhilge ann so sios ar ndiaidh go fóirleathan air gach modh, & gach foirim dar gnáth leis na Gaodhaluibh a scrobhadh. Agas Tionsgnaoghimse an obuirse a n-ainm De Agus chum úsaide Phairis Mheic Andrias .i. mac leigheainn a ccalaiste na TRIONOIDE 1735.
10r Partial copy of Hugh MacCurtin’s The Elements of the Irish Language, grammatically explained in English. In 14 chapters (Louvain, 1728), including chaps 1-6, part of chap. 7 and part of chap. 11.
46v Alphabets. 47r-63v blank.
64r Gionalaigh Clann Andrias sonn. Genealogy of the Andersons; Cf. Ó Macháin, op. cit.,p. 237. 66r-82r blank.
82v Jottings on pronunciation in a hand not found elsewhere in the book. Ownership inscription of Owen O Luan.