The "Táin Bó Chauilgnue" contains many detailed and picturesque accounts of personal conflicts, weapons, dress, armor, etc., and, in this respect alone, it is interesting to glance at the history of the noble poem.
Saint Ciaran, the founder of the church at Clonmacnoise, in ancient Westmeath, and who died in the year 548, transcribed this poem with his own hand into a book called "Leabhar na-h-Uidliri," which book remained at Clonmacnoise for hundreds of years afterwards. The poem was again transcribed from St. Ciaran's MS. about the year 1100, and in the year 1873 it was translated into English and published by the Royal Irish Academy, in the literary of which the vellum transcription of the year 1100 is still preserved.
The "Táin Bó Chuailgne" is also preserved in the "Book of Leinstor" an almost contemporary manuscript, four hundred large pages of which still remain in beautiful preservation. The "Book of Leinster" was transcribed about the year 1150, by Bishop MacGorman, of Kildare, who died in 1160. At this day, therefore, it is at least seven hundred and thirty-eight years old. It contains a splendid copy of the "Táin Bó Chuailgne" So that we have this superb literary specimen of ancient Irish poetry from two distinct sources giving an assured copy of the poem as it existed
