Although it first appeared in 1881 Frederick Edward Warren’s The Liturgy and Ritual of the Celtic Church is still the most important modern source for the study of the liturgy of Ireland in the Pre-Norman period. The complete text of the original work is reproduced in this new edition of The Liturgy and Ritual of the Celtic Church. In addition two further hard-to-come-by texts are reproduced in this volume. The Stowe Missal is one of the most significant liturgical manuscripts of Irish provenance. An important critical edition of The Stowe Missal was prepared by Bartholemew MacCathy and published in the Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy for 1886. MacCarthy’s edition has still not been superseded and should be used for any serious study. A second additional text that is reproduced in this volume is a critical edition and English translation of “The Leabhair Breac Tractate on the Consecration of a Church,” an Old Irish liturgical text edited by Whitley Stokes and until now only available in an obscure Italian festschrift edition from 1901.

The editor of this edition is the Rev. Dr. Neil Xavier O’Donoghue, who recently completed his PhD dissertation on the subject of the Eucharist in Pre-Norman Ireland. In the introduction he provides readers with an overview of the developments in the field of early Irish liturgy since the publication of Warren’s masterpiece and situates it in the line of significant subsequent publications.