John Luddy was born in County Limerick, Ireland in 1830. A farmer, he married Honora Barlow in 1854 in the Parish of Galbally, County of Limerick. Between 1867 and 1869, Luddy completed three notebooks of Fenian prose tales and poetry while living in the parish of Ballylanders, Limerick, Ireland. John Luddy died in 1877 at the age of 47 from pneumonia in Mitchelstown, Ireland, after which his wife immigrated to the United States with their children. The Luddy family settled in Waterbury, Connecticut. Michael G. Luddy, the grandson of John Luddy, received a LL.B. degree (1916) and a LL.D. degree (1964) from The Catholic University of America and bequeathed the notebooks of his grandfather to the University's Department of Celtic Languages in 1968. Written in Gaelic, the three notebooks digitized here largely contain copied fragments of Fenian prose tales and poetry. Fine examples of Irish calligraphy, they were the work of Luddy while living in the parish of Ballylanders in Limerick, Ireland.