Battle of Kells by a supposed offer of fealty from Lord O'Dempsey from Offaly. The two armies met outside Kells, where the Scots began to burn the town. After three hours of fighting, the de Lacy brothers withdrew, leaving Mortimer to fight a much larger force. With his army destroyed and Kells burning, Mortimer managed to escape with a few knights and ride to Dublin. The Scots then burned Granard and march for two months unopposed through the midlands, devastating the country. Battle of Kells The Battle of Kells was a battle between Edward Bruce and Roger Mortimer, 1st Earl of March. After
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