To mark Dr O'Reilly's profound contribution to teaching and research in the School of History, University College Cork, a prize fund has been instituted for the annual award of "The Jennifer O'Reilly Prize in Medieval History".

Seen together, the essays gathered in these books highlight her distinctive approach to historical sources, and her substantial contribution to our understanding of England and Ireland in the Middle Ages.

The Cork medieval scholar Jennifer O’Reilly, who has died aged 72, was a gifted university teacher and a renowned authority on The Book of Kells and similar treasures of antiquity. In her long and distinguished career, she made substantial and groundbreaking contributions in the fields of history, theology, art history and manuscript studies.

When she died in 2016, Dr O’Reilly left behind a body of published work in three areas of medieval studies: the writings of Bede and his older Irish contemporary, Adomnán of Iona; the early lives of Thomas Becket; and the iconography of the Gospel Books produced in early medieval Ireland and Anglo-Saxon England.

This volume comprises the first eight lectures (2017–2024) presented in memory of Jennifer O’Reilly, a renowned expert in early medieval Insular culture.

The entirety of Dr O’Reilly’s digital archive consists of approximately 65,000 files, a small portion of which was selected and arranged thematically into 11 subcollections on various aspects of Jennifer’s research and teaching on the writings of the Venerable Bede.

This interdisciplinary collection sets the cultural transformation of early medieval Ireland and Anglo-Saxon England in the context of its inheritance from Late Antiquity and engagement with the wider Medieval world.