Editing Old Irish (section)

==Sources==
Relatively little survives in the way of strictly contemporary sources. They are represented mainly by shorter or longer [[Gloss (margin text)|gloss]]es on the margins or [[interlinear gloss|between the lines]] of religious [[Latin]] [[manuscripts]], most of them preserved in monasteries in Germany, Italy, Switzerland, France and Austria, having been taken there by [[Hiberno-Scottish mission|early Irish missionaries]]. Whereas in Ireland, many of the older manuscripts appear to have been worn out through extended and heavy use, their counterparts on the Continent were much less prone to the same risk because once they ceased to be understood, they were rarely consulted.{{sfn|Thurneysen|1946|p=4}}

The earliest Old Irish passages may be the transcripts found in the [[Cambrai Homily]], which is thought to belong to the early 8th century. The [[Book of Armagh]] contains texts from the early 9th century. Important Continental collections of glosses from the 8th and 9th century include the [[Würzburg]] Glosses (mainly) on the [[Pauline Epistles]], the [[Milan]] Glosses on a commentary to the [[Psalms]] and the [[St Gallen|St Gall]] Glosses on [[Priscian]]'s Grammar.

Further examples are found at [[Karlsruhe]] (Germany), Paris (France), Milan, [[Florence]] and [[Turin]] (Italy). A late 9th-century manuscript from the [[abbey of Reichenau]], now in [[St. Paul in Carinthia]] (Austria), contains a spell and four Old Irish poems. The ''[[Liber Hymnorum]]'' and the ''[[Stowe Missal]]'' date from about 900 to 1050.

In addition to contemporary witnesses, the vast majority of Old Irish texts are attested in manuscripts of a variety of later dates. Manuscripts of the later Middle Irish period, such as the {{Lang|mga|[[Lebor na hUidre]]|italic=no}} and the [[Book of Leinster]], contain texts which are thought to derive from written exemplars in Old Irish now lost and retain enough of their original form to merit classification as Old Irish.

The preservation of certain linguistic forms current in the Old Irish period may provide reason to assume that an Old Irish original directly or indirectly underlies the transmitted text or texts.