Book of Kells was quartered in the church at Kells, and the governor of the town sent the book to Dublin for safekeeping. Henry Jones, who later became bishop of Meath after the Restoration, presented the manuscript to Trinity College in Dublin in 1661, and it has remained there ever since, except for brief loans to other libraries and museums. It has been on display to the public in the Old Library at Trinity since the 19th century. Over the years, the Book of Kells received several additions to its text. In the 16th century, one Gerald Plunkett of Dublin added a series
Book of Kells of the great stone church at Cenannas on account of its wrought shrine". The manuscript was recovered a few months later—minus its golden and bejewelled cover—"under a sod". It is generally assumed that the "great Gospel of Columkille" is the Book of Kells. If this is correct, then the book was in Kells by 1007 and had been there long enough for thieves to learn of its presence. The force of ripping the manuscript free from its cover may account for the folios missing from the beginning and end of the Book of Kells. The description in the Annals of