Paper and the Paper Manuscript – a context for transmission of Gaelic literature

The history of paper has been an important area of enquiry in many countries for nearly two hundred years, but it is still only in its infancy in Ireland. For our knowledge of the history of the printed book we are all indebted to bibliographers and to scholars of typography, printing and publishing. In manuscript studies, great advances have been made in cataloguing, philology, and palaeography. The cognate study of the materiality of the Irish book, as an artefact with its own story to tell, has not been pursued to any great extent however.

Any such study should include the investigation of the material that comprises the vast majority of Irish books: paper. In this regard, the continuity of the tradition of the Gaelic manuscript has much to contribute. The main purpose of this publication, therefore, is firstly to give a flavour of the variety of areas that international paper-scholarship touches upon, and secondly to try and suggest how the study of paper in Ireland, and specifically the paper in Gaelic manuscripts, might be located within, benefit from and contribute to that international context.