Annals of Clonmacnoise

The, so called, Annals of Clonmacnoise is a translation into English of an Irish chronicle (which shares an ancestor with the Annals of Tigernach), beginning with the Creation and ending in 1408. The translation was completed, by one Connell Mageoghagan, in 1627. The book Connell was working from was in poor condition. Some pages were missing, and others completely undecipherable. In the dedication, to his brother (dated 20th April, 1627), he writes:

The earnest Desire I understand you haue to know these things made me to undertake the translating of the ould Irish booke for you, wch by longe lying shutt & unused I could hardly read and left places, that I could not read because they were altogether growne illegible & put out …

Connell highlights a fate which uninterested owners might allow to befall their old volumes – possibly not one that would spring to the modern mind:

… some of them suffer Taylors to cutt the leaves of the said Books (which their auncestors held in great accoumpt), & sliece them into long peeces to make theire measures off …

Maybe the (presumably, early 15th century) “ould Irish booke” and the original manuscript of Connell’s translation ended up as tailors measures, since both are now lost.