INTRODUCTION.
THE following curious Tract, now for the first time published, has not hitherto received from the students of ancient Irish literature the notice which in my opinion it deserves. The late Professor O'Curry, who has done so much to draw the attention of European scholars to the rich stores of genealogical, mythological, and philological materials contained in Irish mss., in his account of the Book of Letnster^ dismisses the Mesca Ulad with a brief reference.* His learned friend and colleague. Dr. John O'Donovan (who unhappily was not destined to complete his calendar of the Irish mss. in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin), appears to have made but little use of the composition, the importance of which was first brought under public notice through the lucid summary of its contents published by Dr, Robert Atkinson, in connexion with his able Introduction to the Lithograph copy of the Book of Leinater. The Mesca Ulad is not mentioned in the list of ancient Irish Tales contained in the Book of Leinstery p. 189, ag., which has been printed by O'Curry {MS. Materials^ p. 684, sq.). It does 1 " The Mesca Ulad [or Inebriety of the Ultonians], who, in a fit of excitement, after a great feast at the royal palace of Emania, made a sudden and furious march into Munster, where they burned the palace of Teamhair Luachrat in Kerry, then the residence of Curoi Mae Baire, King of West Munster. This tract abounds in curious notices of topography, as well as in allusions to and descriptions of social habits and manners."—Lectures on MS, Materials, p. 185. further on, Prof. 0' Curry, in noticing that the Tale in the Book of Leinster is
- imperfect at the end," observes that it " can be made perfect by the fragment of it already mentioned m Leabhar na h-XIidrey—lb. 187. But unfortunately this is not so.
