In old times all books were handwritten, printing being a late invention. There were persons called Scribes, many of whom made writing the chief business of their lives. From constant practice they became very expert; and the penmanship of many of them was extremely beautiful and highly ornamented, much more so than any writing executed by the very best penmen of the present day.

In Ireland, most of these scribes were monks, inmates of monasteries; but many were laymen. These good and industrious men wrote into their books all the learning of every kind that they could collect; so that although the work of writing was slow, the numbers of books rapidly increased; and very large libraries grew up, especially in the monasteries. The leaves of these books were not paper like those of our books, but parchment or vellum, which was generally made from sheepskin, but often from the skins of other animals.

Sometimes the scribes wrote down what had never been written before, that is, matters composed at the time, or preserved in memory: but more commonly they copied from other volumes. If an old book began to be worn, ragged, or dim with age, so as to be hard to make out and read, some scribe was sure to copy it, so as to have a new book easy to read and well bound up. Most of the books written out in this manner related to Ireland, as will be described presently; and the language of these was almost always Irish. For in those times the Irish language was spoken by all the people of Ireland.

A favourite occupation was copying portions of the Holy Scriptures, nearly always in the Latin language; and in this good work some monks spent nearly all their time, in order to multiply copies of the sacred books. Some of the greatest saints of the ancient Irish Church employed themselves in copying the Gospels and other portions of the Bible, whenever they could get the opportunity, as we shall see in the case of St. Columkille.

Copies of the Scriptures, and also prayer books, were generally ornamented in the most beautiful way: for those accomplished and devoted old scribes loved to beautify the sacred writings. Many of the lovely books they wrote are still preserved, of which the most splendid is the Book of Kells, now kept in the Library of Trinity College, in Dublin. It is a copy of the Four Gospels, and the language is Latin, though the letters are Irish. It was written by an Irish scribe eleven or twelve hundred years ago, but who he was is not known.

There is no old book in any part of the world so skilfully ornamented as this. The capital letters are very large—one of them fills an entire page—and are all illuminated, that is, painted in brilliant colours; and after the lapse of so many centuries the colours are still very fresh, though not so bright as when they were first laid on.

In this Book of Kells, and in others like it, the capitals are ornamented in every part with a kind of interlaced work, all done with the pen, in which bands and ribbons are curved and plaited and woven in the most wonderful way. These plaits and folds are so small and so close together that one must sometimes use a magnifying glass in order to see them plainly: in one space, the size of a half penny, in a page of a splendid old volume, called the Book of Armagh, the ribbons appear woven in and out more than three hundred times.

A specimen of this interwoven ornamental work is seen at the head of the first page of this book; but it gives only a poor idea of the beauty of the Book of Kells. The frontispiece of the "Child's History of Ireland" is a perfect copy, in full colours, of a complete page of the Book of Mac Durnan, which is almost as beautiful as the Book of Kells. The Irish used this sort of ornamentation also in metal-work and stone-work, of which an example is given here.

Very often, large volumes were kept, into which were written compositions of all kinds, both prose and poetry, such as were thought worth preserving, copied from older books, and written in, one after another, till the volume was filled. Of all these old books of mixed compositions, the largest that remains to us is the Book of Leinster, which is kept in Trinity College in Dublin. It is an immense volume, all in the Irish language, written more than 750 years ago; and many of the pages are now almost black with age and very hard to make out. It contains a great number of pieces, some in prose and some in verse, and nearly all of them about Ireland—histories, accounts of battles and sieges, lives and adventures of great men, with many tales and stories of things that happened in this country in far distant ages.

The Book of the Dun Cow is preserved in the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin. It is fifty years older than the Book of Leinster, but not so large; and it contains also a great number of tales, adventures, and histories, nearly all relating to Ireland, and all written in the Irish language. Its name was derived from the following circumstance:—St. Kieran of Clonmacnoise had a favourite brown cow, whose skin, when she died, he caused to be turned into parchment, of which a book was made. But this old book no longer exists: it was lost ages ago; and the present "Book of the Dun Cow" is only a copy of it.

Three other great Irish books kept in Dublin are the Book of Lecan [Leckan], the Yellow Book of Lecan, and the Book of Ballymote. These contain much the same kind of matter as the Book of Leinster—with pieces mostly different however—but they are not nearly so old. The Speckled Book, which is also in Dublin, is nearly as large as the Book of Leinster, but not so old. It is mostly on religious matters, and contains a great number of Lives of Saints, Hymns, Sermons, portions of the Scriptures, and other such pieces. All these books are written with the greatest care, and in most beautiful penmanship.

The six old books described above have been lately printed, in such a way as that the print resembles exactly the writing of the old books themselves. The printed volumes are now to be found in libraries in several parts of Ireland, as well as in England and the Continent; so that those desirous of studying them need not come to Dublin, as people had to do formerly.

Many people are now eagerly studying these books and men often come to Ireland from France, Germany, Italy, Norway and Sweden, Russia, and other countries, in order to learn the Irish language so as to be able to read them. But this requires much study, even from those who know the Irish of the present day; for the language of those books is old and difficult.

In many National and Intermediate schools the Irish language is now taught, and no doubt some of the pupils who attend the Irish classes will continue their studies after they leave school, till they come to be able to read our old books.

A great many old Irish tales and histories have been printed and translated, and some of them are very beautiful and instructive. Several of the stories in this book are from the Book of the Dun Cow and the Book of Leinster.