One hundred and twenty-five Irish manuscripts are currently kept in the Department of Special Collections in the Library of the University College, Dublin, and the vast majority of these were compiled in the period from the eighteenth century to the twentieth century. These sources can be divided into five distinct collections: the Pádraig Ferítéar Manuscripts, the Eogháin Oí Comhraí Manuscripts, the Coilm Uí Lochlainn Manuscripts and the Énrí Oí Murighesa Manuscripts — named, unsurprisingly, in honor of their original collectors — and a fifth volume called 'Additional Manuscripts'. The manuscripts that were put together in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in the collection of Uí Muirgheasa are my main concern in this essay because they contain important evidence of the pursuit of native students in Ulster in that period.
