Henry VIII was reason for Annals of Inisfallen finding their way to Britain

Sir, – It is unfair of Chris Doyle to imply that the Bodleian Library’s possession of the Annals of Inisfallen was due to British imperial expansion and colonisation (“The Annals of Inisfallen are part of Irish history. They don’t belong in a British library”, Opinion, October 21st).

The main reason for the movement of this and many other medieval manuscripts away from their place of origin in Britain and Ireland was Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries, not British imperialism.

We should be grateful to Finghín MacCarthy Rea, James Ware, Richard Rawlinson and the Bodleian Library for preserving (legally) this wonderful text for posterity rather than complaining that people Chris Doyle talked to in Munster feel it should be in Ireland.

Similarly, I hope the British people are grateful that one of the finest British medieval manuscripts, Matthew Paris’s Life of St Alban, in danger of disappearing from the world when the Abbey of St Alban’s was closed by Henry VIII, was acquired by the Elizabethan scholar John Dee, then by James Ussher, Archbishop of Armagh, and finally made its way, with the rest of Ussher’s collection, into the library of Trinity College Dublin, where it has been carefully looked after since 1661.

Should Trinity College be returning this and Ussher’s other British medieval manuscripts to their place of origin? I don’t believe so. The dissolution of the monasteries dispersed many important ancient texts to various destinations.

The acquisitions of British imperialism are another matter altogether. – Yours, etc,

BRIAN MCGING,

Regius Professor of Greek Emeritus,

Department of Classics,

Trinity College,

Dublin 2.

Sir, – Chris Doyle thinks the Annals of Inisfallen should be permanently returned to Ireland from the Bodleian Library, Oxford. Maybe we could do a swap.

Many experts believe the Book of Kells was produced on Iona. Iona is, for good or ill, still part of the United Kingdom. You give us Inisfallen, we’ll give you Kells? – Yours, etc,

SEÁN DUFFY,

Professor Emeritus of Medieval Irish History,

Trinity College,

Dublin 2.