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Strachan, placed in my hands. Thus it became my mournful privilege to continue the work of my former teacher, Professor Strachan.

§ 2. I have arranged the work in the following order: (1) The sources of the Annals, (2) Orthography, (3) Phonology (an investigation of the dates of the various vowel and consonant changes in Old Irish), (4) Declension, (5) the Verb (including Infixed Pronoun), (6) Syntax.^[1] In addition, I propose to add as an appendix a critical edition of the quotations in verse scattered throughout the Annals, together with a translation.

THE MANUSCRIPTS.

§ 3. In preparing the thesis, I have collated Hennessy's edition down to A.D. 1000 with its two sources:—

(1) H 1. 8, a vellum MS. in the library of Trinity College, Dublin, to which I refer as H.

(2) The Rawlinson MS. B 489, a vellum MS. in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. This I indicate by R.

In the Trinity copy^[2] it is possible to distinguish three different hands: A, the original hand in which the bulk of the entries are written; B, a second hand in which some of both the interlinear and marginal glosses are written;^[3] C, a continuation of the paragraph in a late hand. The entries in this (C) hand are, as a rule, very late. The scribe of C is also responsible for some of the marginal and interlinear

to 1100, which he intended to arrange later. The verbs from 800 onwards he had collated with the MSS.

1. The syntax I do not deal with in the present part.
2. I only refer here to the portion of the “Annals” prior to A.D. 1050.
3. Hennessy often prints the whole text consecutively, both original hand and glosses, without drawing any distinction between the different hands though he occasionally refers to them in the notes. In making this remark, I do not wish to belittle Hennessy’s edition which has a good many excellent points, but which, from a scientific point of view, leaves much room for improvement. An edition of the earlier portion to about 1100 showing in different type the glosses, and later additions in H 1. 8, with expansion of contractions indicated, is greatly to be desired.