For the past two months, the Annals of Inisfallen, a medieval Irish manuscript of immense historical importance, has been on public display at the Glucksman museum, University College Cork. Soon, however, this little book of just 57 vellum leaves, recognised as a priceless national treasure, will leave these shores and return to the University of Oxford’s main Bodleian Library, where it has been kept since the 1750s. The last time the Annals of Inisfallen came home was in 1983 when they were exhibited at Muckross House, Killarney, Co Kerry. Then, as now, there were calls for the manuscript’s permanent return to Ireland. People wonder why such an important Irish artefact should be housed in a British library.

For anyone unfamiliar, the Annals of Inisfallen are a record of important events in Ireland, chiefly Munster, and abroad between the years 433 and 1450. Written on calfskin vellum, the manuscript was created by more than 30 scribes over the course of about 500 years at different locations. It is thought it was initially copied in the monastery of Lismore, Co Waterford, from materials created in the monasteries of Clonmacnoise in Co Offaly and Emly in Co Tipperary, and Inisfallen monastery on Lough Leane, Killarney, was the last place it was worked on. The text includes references to Saxon attacks, celestial phenomena including a comet, inter-monastic warfare, deadly plagues, Norse raids on Skellig Michael, Brian Boru’s Viking campaigns, Norman invaders, Irish king lists, the deaths of feted poets, saints, clergy, heroes, villains and so on. The good and the bad of the Irish medieval past: they’re all in........

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