The Book of Lecan Conference

During this two-day event in October 2025, speakers explored the production of the Book of Lecan or Leabhar Mór Lecain, its scribes and patrons, and the texts contained within the manuscript.

The manuscript known as the Book of Lecan (Leabhar Mór Lecain) was created in Co. Sligo in the early fifteenth century. It contains a large amount of genealogical material, especially relating to the families with which the scribes were associated, as well as historical, biblical and hagiographical material. Included are a Dindshenchas, Bansenchas, and versions of Lebor Gabála, Uraicept an nÉces, Cóir Anmann, and Book of Rights. The conference papers shared new insights into how the manuscript was produced, its history of ownership and the significance of the various texts found within the compilation.

The event was a collaboration between the Royal Irish Academy, Maynooth University, and the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies.

Recordings have some of the lectures have been made available, subject to the presenters’ consent. It is hoped that the proceedings of this conference will be published as part of the Codices Hibernenses Eximii series in due course.

Thursday 2 October 2025

2.00 pm Making the Book of Lecan - Pádraig Ó Macháin

2.45 pm The Later History of the Book of Lecan - Bernadette Cunningham

3.30 pm Coffee break

4.00 pm Poets and Poetry in the Book of Lecan - Elizabeth Boyle

4.45 pm Lebor Bretnach and the International Perspective of the Book of Lecan - Patrick Wadden

Friday 3 October 2025

9.30am A History of the Men of Britain: Text and Context - Alex Woolf

10.15 am Lebor na Cert: a “Grossly Overrated” Text? - Seán Ó Hoireabhárd

11.00 am Coffee break

11.30 am Gilla Íosa Mór: Pseudohistorian - John Carey

12.15 pm Shaping Dindshenchas Érenn: What the Book of Lecan Version Reveals - Máire Ní Mhaonaigh and David McCay

1.00 pm Lunch

2.30pm A Return to Cóir Anmann: its Etymologies, its Date and the Book of Lecan Text - Sharon Arbuthnot

3.15pm The Book of Lecan’s Secular Genealogies (especially those of Connacht) - Nollaig Ó Muraíle

4.00 pm “A Splendid Family Heirloom”: Manuscript Illumination and the School of Lecan - Karen Ralph