Clonmacnois was one of the main ecclesiastical centres in early Christian Ireland. Yet no comprehensive work has hitherto been published which examines its history as an institution of religious, social and economic life. This book undertakes a detailed analysis of Clonmacnois before and during the age of reform and assesses possible reasons for its subsequent decline as an ecclesiastical centre. It traces the history of the former lay-ecclesiastical aristocracy down to the later Middle Ages, and, using previously neglected evidence surviving in seventeenth-century transcripts, sets out to reconstruct the extent of the former monastic lands.

The Chronicle of Ireland is the principal source for the history of events not only in Ireland itself but also in what is now Scotland up to 911. It incorporated annals compiled on Iona up to c. 740 - a monastery which played a major role in the history of Ireland, of the Picts to its east and, from 635 to 664, of Northumbria. Up to c. 740 the Chronicle is thus a crucial source for both Ireland and Britain; and from c. 740 to 911 it still records some events outside Ireland. The text of the Chronicle is best preserved in the Annals of Ulster, but it was also transmitted through chronicles derived from a version made at the monastery of Clonmacnois in the Irish midlands. This translation is set out so as to show at a glance what text is preserved in both branches of the tradition and what is in only one. -- Amazon.com.