Page:Foras feasa ar Éirinn - Keating; Comyn, Dinneen.djvu/25

Rh very good hand; and others: but of these I have made no special use.

I shall note at the foot of each page, for the present, only such 'various readings' as appear to me to be important. Space, after all, is an object, and the whole volume might easily be filled with matter which would be little help, but rather a distraction, to the reader. The author himself is believed to have made several transcripts of his work; and to have inserted from time to time, passages or quotations relating to the events recorded. In this way there is some inevitable discrepancy between the best manuscripts. I have followed, in the main, the recension of the O'Mulconrys, adhered to strictly by Dr. Joyce, and which is also the basis of Haliday's text. I have not modernized their system of inflection, or altered the orthography, save in certain mannerisms, which I have not felt bound to adopt. It is probable that this family of professional scribes and antiquaries would have adhered more rigidly than Keating himself to classic but obsolescent usages. In fact, the important. cited as F, prefers living forms such as, where C has , &c. The authentic copies differ occasionally from each other, and where I have had to choose between them, or prefer another authority, the ancillary manuscript and other sources from which omissions have been supplied and various readings drawn, will be indicated wherever necessary. The ., here and there, retain antiquated forms of spelling from which I have felt at liberty to depart when their use in other places of more modern forms gives sanction to the innovation. Thus, for instance, O'Mulconry uses the obsolete and  almost side by side with the living. The latter I have uniformly adopted, as it exists in texts much older than Keating's time, such as the 'Homilies' in the Leabhar Breac: and so I have, where authority was equal, endeavoured to attain uniformity of spelling, and given the preference to