"It is, as far as we know, the last of the great family books written in Irish, but its text has remained rather bleak, the poems that were probably intended to fill the blank pages never having been copied".

What distinguishes the Book of the de Burgos from other late medieval Irish manuscripts is its visual style, with large pictures which are "extremely crude and brutal in colour, but arresting by their originality and their vehemence.

Movements are awkward but convincing... skies are red or yellow, dogs are green, there is a constant disproportion of the figures, but a sort of brutal integrity emanates from these images... gaudy and violently realistic.

The book ends with two legal deeds in Latin, dated 1584, between Walter Ciotach Burke (son of Seaán) and the Barretts, who laid claim to possession of Belleek Castle.

There are later comments in English in a later hand from the original scribe - "Olyverus Bourke mac Sheamus died the last daye of December Annno Dom.