This article deals with Old Irish and Middle Irish literature Old Irish is the name given to the oldest form of the Irish language which can be more or less fully reconstructed from extant sources. ... my children are my life ...

Old Irish

The earliest existing examples of the written Irish language as preserved in manuscripts do not go back farther than the 8th century; they are chiefly found in Scriptural glosses written between the lines or on the margins of religious works in Latin, preserved on the Continent where they were carried by early Irish missionaries in the numerous monasteries which they founded in Switzerland, Germany, France, and Italy. The oldest piece of consecutive Irish preserved in Ireland is found in the "Book of Armagh", written about the year 812. These early glosses, though of little interest outside of philology, show the wide learning of the commentators and the extraordinary development, even at that early period, of the language in which they wrote. Their language and style, says Kuno Meyer, stand on a high level in comparison with those of the Old High German glosses. "We find here", he writes, "a fully-formed learned prose style which allows even the finest shades of thought to be easily and perfectly expressed, from which we must conclude that there must have been a long previous culture [of the language] going back at the very least to the beginning of the sixth century" (Kultur der Gegenwart, part I, section xi, p. 80). These glosses are to be found at Wurtzburg, St. Gall, Karlsruhe, Milan, Turin, St. Paul in Carinthia, and elsewhere. The "Liber Hymnorum" and the "Stowe Missal" are, after the glosses and the "Book of Armaugh", perhaps the most ancient manuscripts in which Irish is written. They date from about the year 900 to 1050. (7th century — 8th century — 9th century — other centuries) Events The Iberian peninsula is taken by Arab and Berber Muslims, thus ending the Visigothic rule, and starting almost 8 centuries of Muslim presence there. ... A Gloss–Margin text, is a note or notation (even 1-word), but often phrases, or sentences-(paragraph) found in documents, manuscripts, etc. ... Irish and Scottish missionaries (Iro-Scottish, Hiberno-Scottish) were instrumental in the spread of Christianity in Anglo-Saxon England and the Frankish Empire during the 6th and 7th centuries. ... A page of text from the Book of Armagh. ... Events Births April 12 - Muhammad at-Taqi, Shia Imam (d. ... Philology is the study of ancient texts and languages. ... The term Old High German (OHG, German: Althochdeutsch) refers to the earliest stage of the German language and it conventionally covers the period from around 500 to 1050. ... Würzburg is a city in the region of Franconia which lies in the northern tip of Bavaria, Germany. ... St. ... Karlsruhe (population 283,959 in 2005) is a city in the south west of Germany, in the Bundesland Baden-Württemberg, located near the French-German border. ... Milan (Italian: ; Lombard: Milán (listen)) is the main city of northern Italy, located in the plains of Lombardy. ... Torino redirects here. ... Sankt Paul im Lavanttal is a municipality of the Wolfsberg discrict, Carinthia, Austria. ... The Stowe Missal is a translation of the Latin and Gaelic Missal and was transcribed at Lorrha Monastery in the Ninth Century. ... Events Persian scientist, Rhazes, distinguished smallpox from measles in the course of his writings. ... Leofric becomes Bishop of Exeter Hedeby is sacked by King Harald Hardraade of Norway during the course of a conflict with King Eric Estridsson of Denmark. ...

The oldest books of miscellaneous literature are the "Leabhar na h-Uidhre", or "Book of the Dun Cow", transcribed about the year 1100, and the "Book of Leinster", which dates from about fifty years later. These books are great miscellaneous literary collections. After them come many valuable vellums. The date at which these manuscripts were penned is no criterion of the date at which their contents were first written, for many of them contain literature which, from the ancient forms of words and other indications, must have been committed to writing at least as early as the seventh century. We cannot carry these pieces farther back with firm certainty using linguistic methods, but it is evident from their contents that many of them must have been orally transmitted for centuries before they were committed to writing. It must also be noted that a 17th century manuscript may sometimes give a more correct version of a 7th century piece than a vellum many centuries older. Lebor na hUidre, or the Book of the Dun Cow, is the oldest Irish manuscript to contain primarily native narrative materials. ... The Book of Leinster (Irish Lebor Laignech), formerly known as the Book of Noughaval (Lebor na Nuachongbála), is a medieval Irish manuscript compliled ca. ...

Early Christian Scholars in Ireland

It happens that Ireland's first great saint is also the first person of whom it can be said without hesitation that some at least of the writings ascribed to him are really his. We actually possess a manuscript (Book of Armaugh) 1100 years old, containing his "Confession" or apology. There is no reason, however, for supposing that it was with St. Patrick that a knowledge of the Roman alphabet was first brought to Ireland. Before his arrival there were Christians in Munster. At the beginning of the third century there were British missionaries at work, according to Zimmer, in the southern province of the island. Bede says distinctly that Paladius was sent from Rome to the Irish who already believed in Christ ad Scottos in christum credentes (Eccl. Hist. 1.13). Pelagius, the subtle heresiarch who taught with such success at Rome, and who acquired great influence there, was of Irish descent. Habet, says St. Jerome, progenium Scotticæ gentis de Brittanorum vicinia (P.L., XXIV, 682, 758). He came probably from those Irish who had settled in Wales and South Britain. His friend and teacher Celestius is said by some to have been an Irishman also, but this is doubtful. Sedulius, however (Irish Siadal, now Shiel in English), the author of the "Carmen Paschale", who flourished in the first half of the 5th century, and who has been called the "Virgil of theological poetry", was almost certainly an Irishman. Indeed the Irish geographer Dicuil in the 8th century calls him noster Sedulius, all of which shows that some Irish families at least were within the reach of a cosmopolitan literary education in the fourth and fifth centuries and that they were quick to grasp it. Statue of Saint Patrick Saint Patrick (died March 17, 462, 492, or 493), is the patron saint of Ireland. ... Statistics Area: 24,607. ... Depiction of Bede from the Nuremberg Chronicle, 1493. ... Pelagius (c. ... The Patrologia Latina is an enormous work published by Jacques-Paul Migne between 1844 and 1855, with indices published between 1862 and 1865. ... Caelestius (or Celestius) was the major follower of the Christian teacher Pelagius and the Christian doctrine of Pelagianism, which was opposed to Augustine of Hippo and his doctrine in original sin, and was later declared to be heresy. ... Coelius (or Caelius, both styles of praenomen of doubtful authenticity) Sedulius, was a Christian poet of the first half of the 5th century. ... Dicuil was an Irish monk and geographer, born in the second half of the 8th century; date of death unknown. ...

Existing Manuscript Literature

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The exact number of Irish manuscripts still existing has never been accurately determined. The number in the Royal Irish Academy, Dublin, alone is enormous, probably amounting to some fifteen hundred. O'Curry, O'Longan, and O'Beirne catalogued a little more than half the manuscripts in the Academy, and the catalogue filled thirteen volumes containing 3448 pages; to these an alphabetic index of the pieces contained was made in three volumes, and an index of the principle names, etc. in thirteen volumes more. From an examination of these books one may roughly calculate that the pieces catalogued would number about eight or ten thousand, varying from long epic sagas to single quatrains or stanzas, and yet there remains a great deal more to be indexed, a work which after a delay of very many years is happily now at last in process of accomplishment. The library of Trinity College, Dublin, also contains a great number of valuable manuscripts of all ages, many of them vellums, probably about 160. The British Museum, the Bodleian Library at Oxford University, the Advocates Library in Edinburgh, and the Bibliothèque Royale in Brussels are all repositories of a large number of valuable manuscripts. Image File history File links Current_event_marker. ... Image File history File links Nuvola_apps_important. ... The Royal Irish Academy (RIA) is one of Irelands premier learned societies and cultural institutions. ... Trinity College, Dublin, corporately designated as the Provost, Fellows and Scholars of the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, was founded in 1592 by Queen Elizabeth I, and is the only constituent college of the University of Dublin, Irelands oldest university. ... The centre of the museum was redeveloped in 2000 to become the Great Court, surrounding the original Reading Room. ... Entrance to the Library, with the coats-of-arms of several Oxford colleges The Bodleian Library, the main research library of the University of Oxford, is one of the oldest libraries in Europe, and in England is second in size only to the British Library. ... The University of Oxford, located in the city of Oxford in England, is the oldest university in the English-speaking world. ... The Advocates Library is a law library belonging to the Faculty of Advocates in Edinburgh, founded in 1682. ... The Royal Library of Belgium (Koninklijke Bibliotheek in Dutch, Bibliothèque Royale in French, abbreviated KBR and sometimes nicknamed Albertina) is one of the most important cultural institutions in Belgium. ...

Contents of the Manuscripts

From what we know of the contents of the existing manuscripts we may set down as follows a rough classification of the literature contained in them. We may well begin with the ancient epics dating substantially from pagan times, probably first written down in the seventh century or even earlier. These epics generally contain verses of poetry and often whole poems, just as in the case of the French chantefable, "Aucassin et Nicollet". After the substantially pagan efforts may come the early Christian literature, especially the lives of the saints, which are both numerous and valuable, visions, homilies, commentaries on the Scriptures, monastic rules, prayers, hymns, and all possible kinds of religious and didactic poetry. After these we may place the many ancient annals, and there exists besides a great mass of genealogical books, tribal histories, and semi-historical romances. After this may come the bardic poetry of Ireland, the poetry of the hereditary poets attached to the great Gaelic families and the provincial kings, from the 9th century down to the 17th. Then follow the Brehon Laws and other legal treaties, and an enormous quantity of writings on Irish and Latin grammar, glossaries of words, metrical tracts, astronomical, geographical, and medical works. Nor is there any lack of free translations from classical and mediæval literature, such as Lucan's "Bellum Civile", Bede's "Historica Ecclesiastica", Mandeville's "Travels", Arthurian romances and the like. To this catalogue may perhaps be added the unwritten folk-lore of the island both in prose and verse which has only lately begun to be collected, but of which considerable collections have already been made. Such, then, is a brief and bald résumé of what the student will find before him in the Irish language. The Brehon Laws were statutes that governed everyday life and politics in Ireland until the Norman invasion of 1171 (the word Brehon is an Anglicisation of breitheamh (earlier brithem), the Irish word for a judge). ... Lucan can refer to: Lucan, a town in County Dublin Lucan, a town in Minnesota, USA Lucan, a town in Ontario, Canada Earl of Lucan, a British peerage title Richard Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan, the most famous holder Lucan, a Roman poet Lucan the Butler, a Knight of the... In Roman literature, the Pharsalia (also known as the Bellum civile) is an epic poem by the poet Lucan. ... Mandeville may refer to any of the following: People Bernard Mandeville, philosopher Geoffrey de Mandeville, 1st Earl of Essex Geoffrey de Mandeville, 2nd Earl of Essex Sir John Mandeville, French language author William de Mandeville, 3rd Earl of Essex Places Mandeville, Jamaica Mandeville, Louisiana, United States Mandeville, Normandy, France Mandeville... King Arthur is an important figure in the mythology of Britain. ...

There may be observed in this list two remarkable omissions. There is no epic handed down entirely in verse, and there is no dramatic literature. The Irish epic is in prose, though it is generally interwoven with numerous poems, for though epic poems exist in rhyme, such as some of the Ossianic poems, they are of modern date, and none of the great and ancient epics are constructed in this way. The absence of the drama, however, is more curious still. Highly cultivated as Irish literature undoubtedly was, and excellent scholars both in Greek and Latin as the early Irish were, nevertheless they do not seem to have produced even a miracle play. It has been alleged that some of the Ossianic poems, especially those containing a semi-humorous, semi-serious dialogue between the last of the great pagans, the poet Oisin (Ossian as he is called in Scotland), and the first of the great Christian leaders, St. Patrick, were originally intended to be acted, or at least recited, by different people. If this be really so, then the Irish had at least the rudiments of a drama, but they never appear to have carried it beyond these rudiments, and the absence of all real dramatic attempt, however it may be accounted for, is one of the first things that is likely to strike with astonishment the student of comparative literature. It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Oisín. ...

Early Irish epic or saga

In Ireland, the prose epic or saga developed, and kept on developing, for well over a thousand years. In the "Book of Leinster", a manuscript of the middle 12th century, we find a list of the names of 187 epic sagas. The ollamh (ollav), or arch-poet, who was the highest dignitary among the poets, and whose training lasted for some twelve years, was obliged to learn two hundred and fifty of these prime sagas and one hundred secondary ones. The Book of Leinster (Irish Lebor Laignech), formerly known as the Book of Noughaval (Lebor na Nuachongbála), is a medieval Irish manuscript compliled ca. ...

The manuscripts themselves divide these prime sagas into the following categories, from the very names of which we may get a glance of the genius of the early Gael, and form some conception of the tragic nature of his epic: Destruction of Fortified Places, Cow Spoils (i.e., cattle-raids), Courtships or Wooing, Battles, Stories of Caves, Navigations, Tragical Deaths, Feasts, Sieges, Adventures of Travel, Elopements, Slaughters, Water-eruptions, Expeditions, Progresses, and Visions. "He is no poet", says the Book of Leinster, "who does not synchronize and harmonize all these stories." Cattle rustling or cattle raiding is the act of stealing livestock. ...

In addition to the names of 187 sagas in that book, there exist the names of many more that occur in the 10th or 11th century tale of MacCoise, and all the known ones, with the exception of one added later and another in which there is evidently an error in transcription, refer to events prior to the year 650 or thereabouts. We may take it then that the list was drawn up in the 7th century. Who were the authors of these sagas? That is a question that cannot be answered. There is not a trace of authorship remaining, if, indeed, authorship be the right word for what is far more likely to have been the gradual growth of stories, woven around racial, or tribal, or even family history, and in some cases around incidents of early Celtic mythology, thus forming stories which were ever being told and retold, burnished up and added to by professional poets and saga-tellers, and which were, some of them, handed down for perhaps countless generations before they were ever put on parchments or before lists of their names and contents were made by scholars. Those which recount ancient tribal events or dynastic wars were probably much exaggerated, magnified, and undoubtedly distorted during the course of time; others, again, of more recent growth, give us perhaps fairly accurate accounts of real events. Events Arab conquest of Persia, establishment of Islam as state religion Hindu empire in Sumatra Croats and Serbs occupy Bosnia Khazars conquer Great Bulgarian Empire in southern Russia building of St. ... Celtic mythology is the mythology of Celtic polytheism, apparently the religion of the Iron Age Celts. ...

It seems quite certain that, as soon as Christianity had pervaded the island, and bardic schools and colleges had been formed alongside of the monasteries, there was no class of learning more popular than that which taught the great traditionary doings, exploits, and tragedies of the various tribes and families and races of Ireland. Then the peregrinations of the bards and the inter-communication among their colleges must have propagated throughout all Ireland any local traditions that were worthy of preservation. The very essence of the national life of the island was embodied in these stories, but, unfortunately, few only of their enormous number have survived to our days, and even these are mostly mutilated or preserved in mere digests. Some, however, exist at nearly full length, although probably in no case are they written down in the ancient vellums in just the same manner as they would have been recounted by the professional poet, for the writers of most of the early vellums were not the poets but generally Christian monks, who took an interest and a pride in preserving the early memorials of their race, and who cultivated the native language to such an amazing degree that at a very early period it was used alongside Latin, and soon almost displaced it, even in the domain of the Church itself. This patriotism of the Irish monks and this early cultivation of the vernacular are the more remarkable when we know that it is the very reverse of what took place throughout the rest of Europe, where the almost exclusive use of Latin by the Church was the principal means of destroying native and pagan tradition. In spite, however, of the irrevocable losses inflicted upon the Irish race by the Northmen from the end of the 8th to the middle of the 11th century, and of the ravages of the Normans after their so-called conquest, and of the later and more ruthless destructions wrought wholesale and all over the island by the Elizabethan and Cromwellian English, O'Curry was able to assert that the content of the strictly historical tales known to him would be sufficient to fill up 4,000 large quarto pages. He computes that the tales belonging to the Ossianic and the Fenian cycle would fill 3,000 more, and that, in addition to these, the miscellaneous and imaginative cycles which are neither historical nor Fenian, would fill 5,000. The term Viking commonly denotes the ship-borne explorers, traders, and warriors of the Norsemen (literally, men from the north) who originated in Scandinavia and raided the coasts of the British Isles, France and other parts of Europe as far east as the Volga River in Russia from the late... Norman conquests in red. ... Elizabeth I (7 September 1533 – 24 March 1603 ) was Queen of England and Queen of Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. ... Oliver Cromwell (April 25, 1599–September 3, 1658) was an English military and political leader best known for making England a republic and leading the Commonwealth of England. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Oisín. ... The Fenian Cycle also known as the Fionn Cycle, Finn Cycle, Fianna Cycle, Finnian Tales, Fian Tales, Féinne Cycle, Feinné Cycle, Ossianic Cycle and Fianaigecht, is a body of prose and verse centering on the exploits of the mythic hero Fionn mac Cumhaill and his warriors the Fianna Éireann. ...

Pagan Literature and Christian Sentiment

The bulk of the ancient stories and some of the ancient poems were probably, as we have seen, committed to writing by monks of the 7th century, but are themselves substantially pagan in origin, conception, and colouring. And yet there is scarcely one of them in which some Christian allusion to heaven, or hell, or the Deity, or some Biblical subject, does not appear. The reason of this seems to be that, when Christianity succeeded in gaining the upper hand over paganism, a kind of tacit compromise was arrived at, by means of which the bard, and the filè (i.e., poet), and the representative of the old pagan learning were permitted by the sympathetic clerics to propagate their stories, tales, poems, and genealogies, at the price of tacking on to them a little Christian admixture, just as the vessels of some feudatory nations are compelled to fly at the masthead the flag of the suzerain power. But so badly has the dovetailing of the Christian into the pagan part been performed in most of the oldest romances that the pieces come away quite separate in the hands of even the least skilled analyser, and the pagan substratum stands forth entirely distinct from the Christian accretion. Thus, for example, in the evidently pagan saga called the "Wooing of Etain", we find the description of the pagan paradise given its literary passport, so to speak, by a cunningly interwoven allusion to Adam's fall. Etain was the wife of one of the Tuatha De Danann, who were gods. She is reborn as a mortal — the pagan Irish seem, like the Gaulish druids, to have believed in metempsychosis — and weds the king of Ireland. Her former husband of the Tuatha De Danann race still loves her, follows her into life as a mortal, and tries to win her back by singing to her a captivating description of the glowing unseen land to which he would lure her. "O lady fair, wouldst thou come with me" he cries "to the wondrous land that is ours", and he describes how "the crimson of the foxglove is in every brake — a beauty of land the land I speak of. youth never grows into old age there, warm sweet streams traverse the country", etc.: and then the evidently pagan description of this land of the gods is made passable by an added verse in which we are adroitly told that, though the inhabitants of this glorious country saw everyone, yet nobody saw them, "because the cloud of Adam's wrongdoing has concealed us". A bard is a poet or singer, in religious or feudal contexts. ... A fili was a member of an elite class of poets in Ireland, up into the Renaissance, when the Irish class system was dismantled. ... Tochmarc Étaín (Irish for The Wooing Of Étaín) is an Early Irish myth in the Mythological Cycle of Early Irish literature. ... This article is about a mythical people of Ireland. ... Two druids, from an 1845 publication, based on a bas-relief found at Autun, France. ... Metempsychosis is a doctrine among some followers of Eastern teachings which expresses the theory of transmigration, that the human spirit may incarnate from one body to another, either human, animal, or inanimate, which is very different from the doctrine of reincarnation, which holds that man is an evolving being progressing...

It is this easy analysis of the early Irish literature into its ante-Christian and post-Christian elements which lends to it an absorbing interest and a great value in the history of European thought. For, when all spurious accretions have been stripped off, we find in it a genuine picture of pagan life in Europe, such as we look for in vain elsewhere. "The church adopted [in Ireland] towards Pagan sagas the same position that it adopted toward Pagan law [...] I see no reasons for doubting that really genuine pictures of a pre-Christian culture are preserved to us in the individual sagas" (Windisch, Irische Texte, I, 258). "The saga originated in Pagan and was propagated in Christian times, and that too without its seeking fresh nutriment, as a rule, from Christian elements. But we must ascribe it to the influence of Christianity that what is specifically pagan in Irish saga is blurred over and forced into the background. And yet there exist many whose contents are plainly mythological. The Christian monks were certainly not the first who reduced the ancient sagas to fixed form. but later on they copied them faithfully and promulgated them after Ireland had been converted to Christianity" (ibid., 62).

Irish Literature and Early Europe

When it is understood that the ancient Irish sagas record, even though it be in a more or less distorted fashion, in some cases reminiscences of a past mythology, and in others real historical events, dating from the pagan times, then it needs only a moment's reflection to realize their value. "Nothing" writes Zimmer "except a spurious criticism which takes for original and primitive the most palpable nonsense of which Middle-Irish writers from the Twelfth to the Sixteenth century are guilty with regard to their own antiquity, which is in many respects strange and foreign to them, nothing but such a criticism can on the other hand make the attempt to doubt of the historical character of the chief persons of the saga cycles. For we believe that Méve, Conor MacNessa, Cuchulainn, and Fionn mac Cumhaill (Cool) are just as much historical personalities as Arminius or Dietrich of Berne or Etzel, and their date is just as well determined." (Kelt. Studien, fasc. ii, 189.) The first three of these lived in the 1st century BC, and Finn in the 2nd or 3rd century. D'Arbois de Jubainville expresses himself to the same effect. "We have no reason", he writes, "to doubt the reality of the principal rôle in this [cycle of Cuchulainn]" (Introduction à l'étude de la littérature celtique, 217); and of the story of the Boru tribute imposed on Leinster in the 1st century he writes: "The story has real facts for a basis though certain details may have been created by the imagination"; and again, "Irish epic story, barbarous though it be, is, like Irish law, a monument of a civilization far superior to that of the most ancient Germans" (L'épopée celtique en Irlande, preface, p. xli.). "Ireland in fact", writes M. Darmesteter in his "English Studies", summing up his legitimate conclusions derived from the works of the great Celtic scholars, "has the peculiar privilege of a history continuous from the earliest centuries of our era to the present days. She has preserved in the infinite wealth of her literature a complete and faithful picture of the ancient civilization of the Celts. Irish literature is therefore the key which opens the Celtic world (Eng. tr., 1896, 182). But the Celtic world means a large portion of Europe and the key to its past history can be found at present nowhere else than in the Irish manuscripts. Without them we would have to view the past history of a great part of Europe through that distorting medium, the coloured glasses of the Greeks and Romans, to whom all outer nations were barbarians, into whose social life they had no motive for inquiring. Apart from Irish literature we would have no means of estimating what were the feelings, modes of life, manners, and habits of those great Celtic races who once possessed so large a part of the ancient world, Gaul, Belgium, North Italy, parts of Germany, Spain, Switzerland, and the British Isles, who burnt Rome, plundered Greece, and colonized Asia Minor. But in the ancient epics of Ireland we find another standard by which to measure, and through this early Irish medium we get a clear view of the life and manners of the race in one of its strongholds, and we find many characteristic customs of the continental Celts, which are just barely mentioned or alluded to by Greek and Roman writers, reappearing in all the circumstance and expansion of saga-telling. Queen Medb depicted on the Series B Irish pound note. ... Young Cúchulainn, 1912 illustration by Stephen Reid. ... Fionn mac Cumhaill (pronounced /fuN mÉ™ ku:L/, /fiN mÉ™ ku:L/, /fu:n mÉ™ ku:l/ or /foun mÉ™ ku:l/ according to dialect)(earlier Finn or Find mac Cumail or mac Umaill, later Anglicised to Finn McCool) was a hunter-warrior of the Gaelic... The Hermannsdenkmal Arminius (also Hermann, Armin, 16 BC–AD 21) was a war chief of the Germanic tribe of the Cherusci who defeated a Roman army in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. ... Dietrich von Bern is a figure from German medieval legend, long considered to have been based on Theodoric the Great (454–526), the historical king of the Ostrogoths. ... Etzel is the Hebrew acronym of Irgun, an organisation considered as terrorist by many the name of Attila the Hun in the Nibelungenlied This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... A 19th century engraving of Brian Boru Brian Bóruma mac Cennétig (926 or 941[1] – 23 April 1014) (known as Brian Boru in English) was High King of Ireland from 1002 to 1014. ... Statistics Area: 19,774. ... The term Germanic tribes (or Teutonic tribes) applies to the ancient Germanic peoples of Europe. ... A Celtic cross. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...

Of such is the custom of the "Hero's Bit", mentioned by Posidonius, upon which one of the most famous Irish sagas, "Bricriu's Feast", is founded. Again the chariot, which had become obsolete in Gaul a couple of hundred years before Caesar's invasion, is described repeatedly in the sagas of Ireland, and in the greatest of the epic cycles the warriors are always represented as fighting from their chariots. We find, as Diodorus Siculus mentions, that the bards had power to make battles cease by interposing with song between the combatants. Caesar says (Gallic War, 6.14) the Gaulish druids spent twenty years in studying and learned a great number of verses, but Irish literature tells us what the arch-poet, probably the counterpart of the Gaulish druid, actually did learn. "The manners and customs in which the men of the time lived and moved are depicted", writes Windisch, "with a naive realism which leaves no room for doubt as to the former actuality of the scenes depicted. In matter of costume and weapons, eating and drinking, building and arrangement of the banqueting hall, manners observed at the feasts and much more, we find here the most valuable information" (Ir. Texte I, 252). "I insist", he says elsewhere, "that Irish saga is the only richly-flowing source of unbroken Celtism." "It is the ancient Irish language", says d'Arbois de Jubainville, "that forms the connecting point between the neo-Celtic languages and the Gaulish of the inscribed stones, coins, and proper names preserved in Greek and Roman literature." It is evident then that those of the great Continental nations of to-day whose ancestors were mostly Celtic, but whose language, literature, and traditions have completely disappeared, must, if they wish to study their own past, turn themselves to Ireland, and there they will find the dry bones of Posidonius and Caesar rise up before them in a ruddy covering of flesh and blood which, for the first time, will enable them to see what manner of men were their own forebears. The bust of Posidonius as an older man depects his character as a Stoic philosopher. ... Briccriu (Bricriu, Briccirne, Bricne), is a warrior, poet and troublemaker in the Ulster Cycle of Irish Mythology. ... Hittite chariot (drawing of an Egyptian relief) Approximate historical map of the spread of the chariot, 2000 –500 BC. A chariot is a two-wheeled, horse-drawn vehicle. ... Diodorus Siculus (c. ... Map of Gaul circa 58 BC The Gallic Wars were a series of wars fought between the Romans and the people of Gaul during the mid-first century BC, culminating in the Battle of Alesia in 52 BC which resulted in the expansion of the Roman Republic across Gaul. ...

Three Principal Saga Cycles

Main article: Irish mythology

There are three great cycles in Irish story-telling, two of them very full, but the third, in many ways the most interesting, is now but scantily represented. The mythology of pre-Christian Ireland did not entirely survive the conversion to Christianity, but much of it was preserved, shorn of its religious meanings, in medieval Irish literature, which represents the most extensive and best preserved of all the branches of Celtic mythology. ...

Mythological Cycle

Main article: Mythological Cycle

This last cycle was the purely mythological one, dealing with the Tuatha De Danann, the gods of good, and the Fomorians, gods of darkness and evil, and giving us, under the apparently early history of the various races that colonized Ireland, really a distorted early Celtic pantheon. According to these accounts, the Nemedians first seized upon the islands and were oppressed by the Fomorians, who are described as African sea-robbers; these races nearly exterminated each other at the fight round Conning's Tower on Tory Island. Some of the Nemedians escaped to Greece and came back a couple of hundred years later calling themselves Firbolg. Others of the Nemedians who escaped came back later, calling themselves the Tuatha De Danann. These last fought the battle of North Moytura and beat the Firbolg. They fought the battle of South Moytura later and beat the Fomorians. They held the island until the Gaels, also called Milesians or Scoti, came in and vanquished them. From these Milesians the present Irish are mostly descended. Good sagas about both of these battles are preserved, each existing in only a single copy. Nearly all the rest of this most interesting cycle has been lost or is to be found merely in condensed summaries. These mythological pieces dealt with people, dynasties, and probably the struggle between good and evil principles. There is over it all a sense of vagueness and uncertainty. The Mythological Cycle is one of the four major cycles of Irish mythology, and is so called because it represents the remains of the pagan mythology of pre-Christian Ireland, although the gods and supernatural beings have been euhemerised by their Christian redactors into historical kings and heroes. ... This article is about a mythical people of Ireland. ... In Irish mythology, the Fomorians, Fomors, or Fomori (Irish Fomóiri, Fomóraig) were a semi-divine race who inhabited Ireland in ancient times. ... In Irish mythology, Nemed (holy or priveleged) son of Agnoman of Scythia was the leader of the third group of inhabitants of Ireland. ... In Irish mythology and pseudohistory, the Fir Bolg (Fir Bholg, Firbolg, Irish men of Builg) were one of the races that inhabited Ireland before the coming of the Gaels. ... In Irish mythology, Magh Tuiredh (Mag Tuired, Magh Tuireadh, anglicised as Moytura) is the name of the locations of two battles said to have been waged by the Tuatha Dé Danann. ... There are two peoples referred to as Milesians: In Irish mythology, the Milesians were the descendants of Míl Espáine, the final invaders of Ireland who defeated and displaced the semi-divine Tuatha Dé Danann. ... Scotti was the generic name(a latinized version of the gaelic Sgaothaich) given by the Romans to Gaelic raiders from Ireland. ...

Red Branch Cycle

Main article: Red Branch Cycle

The heroic cycle (or Red Branch, Cuchulainn, or Ulster Cycle as it is variously called), on the other hand, deals with the history of the Milesians themselves within a brief but well-defined period, and we seem here to find ourselves not far removed from historical ground. The romances belonging to this cycle are sharply drawn, numerous, and ancient, many of them fine both in conception and execution. The time is about the birth of Christ, and the figures of Cuchulainn (Coohullin), King Conor Mac Nessa, Fergus, Naoise (Neesha), Meadhbh (Mève), Déirdre, Conall Cearnach, and their fellows, have far more circumstantially about them than the dim, mist-magnified, distorted forms of the mysterious Dagda, Nuada of the Silver Hand, Bres, Balor of the Evil Eye, Dana, and the other beings which we find in the mythological cycle. The best known and greatest of all these sagas is the "Táin Bo Chuailgne", or "Cattle-Raid of Cooley", a district in the county of Louth. It gives a full account of the struggle between Connacht and Ulster, and the hero of the piece, as indeed of the whole Red Branch cycle, is the youthful Cuchulainn, the Hector of Ireland, the most chivalrous of enemies. This long saga contains many episodes drawn together and formed into a single whole, a kind of Irish Iliad, and the state of society which it describes from the point of culture-development is considerably older and more primitive than that of the Greek epic. The number of stories that belong to this cycle is considerable. Standish Hayes O'Grady has reckoned ninety-six (appendix to Eleanor Hull's Cuchulainn Saga), of which eighteen seem now to be wholly lost, and many others very much abbreviated, though they were all doubtless at one time told at considerable length. The Ulster Cycle, formerly the Red Branch Cycle, is a large body of prose and verse centering around the traditional heroes of the Ulaid in what is now eastern Ulster. ... In the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology the Red Branch was the name of two Conchobars three houses at Emain Macha, as Old Irish had two words for red. The Cróeb Ruad or Craoibh Ruadh (dull red branch) was where the king sat; its name has survived as... Young Cúchulainn, 1912 illustration by Stephen Reid. ... The Ulster Cycle, formerly the Red Branch Cycle, is a large body of prose and verse centering around the traditional heroes of the Ulaid in what is now eastern Ulster. ... In Irish mythology, Conchobar mac Nessa (also Conchobor, Conchubar, Conchobhar, Conchubhar, Conchúr, Conchúir, Conor, Connacher) was king of Ulster during the events of the Ulster Cycle. ... Fergus is a popular Irish and Scots Gaelic name meaning man-strength or virility. Some people called Fergus include: Fergus of Galloway Fergus Lethderg (red-side or half-red), a son of Nemed who leads his people against the Fomorians in the Irish Mythological Cycle Fergus mac Róich, a... In Irish mythology, Naoise (also spelled Noisiu) was the nephew of King Conchobar of Ulster, and a son of Usnech (or Uisliu), in the Ulster Cycle. ... Queen Medb depicted on the Series B Irish pound note. ... The Dagda is an important god of Irish mythology. ... In Irish mythology, Bres, aka Eochaid Bres, Eochu Bres (Eochaid/Eochu the Beautiful), was a king of the Tuatha Dé Danann. ... In Irish mythology, Danu or Dana was the mother goddess of the Tuatha Dé Danann (peoples of the goddess Danu), although little is recorded about her as a character. ... Táin Bó Cúailnge (the driving-off of cows of Cooley, more usually rendered The Cattle Raid of Cooley or The Táin) is the central tale in the Ulster Cycle, one of the four great cycles that make up the surviving corpus of Irish mythology. ... This article is about the town of Louth in England. ... Connaught redirects here. ... Statistics Area: 24,481 km² Population (2006 estimate) 1,993,918 Ulster (Irish: Cúige Uladh, IPA: ) forms one of the four traditional provinces of Ireland. ... Hector brought back to Troy. ... It has been suggested that Deception of Zeus be merged into this article or section. ...

Fenian Cycle

Main article: Fenian Cycle

After the Red Branch or heroic cycle we find a very comprehensive and even more popular body of romance woven round Finn Mac Cumhail (Cool), his son Oscar, his grandson Oisin or Ossian, Conn of the Hundred Battles of Ireland, his son Art the Lonely, and his grandson Cormac of the Liffey, in the second and third centuries. This cycle of romance is usually called the Fenian cycle because it deals so largely with Finn Mac Cumhail and his Fenian militia. These, according to Irish historians, were a body of Irish janissaries maintained by the Irish kings for the purpose of guarding their coasts and fighting their battles, but they ended by fighting the king himself and were destroyed by the famous cath (or battle of) Gabhra (Gowra). As the heroic cycle is often called the Ulster cycle, so this is also known as the Leinster cycle of sagas, because it may have had its origin, as MacNeill has suggested, amongst the Galeoin, a non-Milesian tribe and subject race, who dwelt around the Hill of Allen in Leinster. This whole body of romance is of later growth or rather expresses a much later state of civilization than the Cuchulainn stories. There is no mention of fighting in chariots, of the Hero's Bit, or of many other characteristics which mark the antiquity of the Ulster cycle. Very few pieces belonging to the Finn story are found in Old Irish, and the great mass of texts is of Middle and Late Irish growth. The extension of the story to all the Gaelic-speaking parts of the kingdom is placed by MacNeill between the years 400 and 700; up to this time it was (as the product of a vassal race) propagated only orally. Various parts of the Finn saga seem to have developed in different quarters of the country, that about Diarmuid of the Love Spot in South Munster, and that about Goll the son of Morna in Connacht. Certain it is that this cycle was by far the most popular and widely spread of the three, being familiarly known in every part of Ireland and of Gaelic-speaking Scotland even to the present day. It developed also in a direction of its own, for though none of the heroic tales are wholly in verse, yet the number of Ossianic epopees, ballads, and poems is enormous, amounting to probably some 50,000 lines, mostly in the more modern language. The Fenian Cycle also known as the Fionn Cycle, Finn Cycle, Fianna Cycle, Finnian Tales, Fian Tales, Féinne Cycle, Feinné Cycle, Ossianic Cycle and Fianaigecht, is a body of prose and verse centering on the exploits of the mythic hero Fionn mac Cumhaill and his warriors the Fianna Éireann. ... Fionn mac Cumhail was a legendary warrior of Irish mythology. ... Ossian is a legendary warrior bard who appears as the narrator in the Celtic legends of Fionn mac Cumhail. ... Conn Cétchathach (Conn of the Hundred Battles) was a legendary High King of Ireland. ... The Fenian Cycle also known as the Fionn Cycle, Finn Cycle, Fianna Cycle, Finnian Tales, Fian Tales, Féinne Cycle, Feinné Cycle, Ossianic Cycle and Fianaigecht, is a body of prose and verse centering on the exploits of the mythic hero Fionn mac Cumhaill and his warriors the Fianna Éireann. ... The Gabhra Valley Valley in County Meath in Ireland. ... Goll can refer to: Goal mac Morn of Celtic mythology Göll, is one of the Valkyries of Norse mythology. ...

Early Christian Literature

Perhaps no country that ever adopted Christianity was so thoroughly and rapidly permeated and perhaps saturated with its language and concepts as was Ireland. It adopted and made its own in secular life scores and hundreds of words originally used by the Church for ecclesiastical purposes. Even to the present day we find in Irish words like póg, borrowed from the Latin for "[the kiss] of peace", pac[is], Old Irish póc; the word for rain, báisteach, is from baptizare, and meant originally "the water of baptism". From the same root comes baitheas, "the crown of the head", i.e. the baptized part. A common word for warrior, or hero, laich, now laoch, is simply from laicus, a layman. The Latin language was, of course, the one used for religious purposes, both in prose and verse, for some time after the introduction of Christianity. In it were written the earliest hymns: Patrick used it in his "Confession", as did Adaman in his "Life of Columcille". But already by the middle of the 8th century the native language had largely displaced it all over Ireland as a medium for religious thought, for homilies, for litanies, books of devotion, and the lives of saints. We find the Irish language used in a large religious literature, much of which is native, some of which represents lost Latin originals which are now known to us only in the Irish translations. One interesting development in this class of literature is the visions-literature beginning with the vision of St. Fursa, which is given at some length by Bede, and of which Sir Francis Palgrave states that "tracing the course of thought upwards we have no difficulty in deducing the poetic genealogy of Dante's Inferno to the Milesian Fursæus". These "visions" were very popular in Ireland, and so numerous they gave rise to the parody, the 12th century "Vision of Mac Conglinne". More important than these, however, are the lives of the saints, because many of them, dating back to a very remote period, throw a great deal of light on the manners of the early Irish. In the first half of the 17th century Brother Michael O'Cleary, a Franciscan, travelled round Ireland and made copies of between thirty and forty lives of Irish saints, which are still preserved in the Burgundian library at Brussels. Nine, at least, exist elsewhere in ancient vellums. A part of one of them, the voyage of St. Brendan, spread all through Europe, but the Latin version is much more complete than any existing Irish one, the original having probably been lost. Saint Columba (7 December 521 - 9 June 597), the Latinized version of the Irish name Colmcille (Old Irish Columb Cille) meaning Dove of the church, was the most outstanding among the group of Dark Ages Irish missionary monks who reintroduced Christianity to Scotland and the north of England. ... DANTE is also a digital audio network. ... Saint Brendan, (484 (?) – 577 (?)) called the Navigator, is one of the early Irish monastic saints whose legends have overshadowed their history. ...

Irish Historical Literature

Owing to the nature of the case, and considering the isolation of Ireland, it is extremely difficult, or rather impossible, to procure independent foreign testimony, to the truth of Irish annals. But, although such testimony is denied us, yet there happily exists another kind of evidence to which we may appeal with comparative confidence. This is nothing less than the records of natural phenomena reported in the annals, for if it can be shown by calculating backwards, as modern science has enabled us to do, that such natural phenomena as the appearance of comets or the occurrence of eclipses are recorded to the day and hour by the annalists, then we can also say with something like certainty that these phenomena were recorded at their appearance by writers who personally observed them, and whose writings must have been actually consulted and seen by these later annalists whose books we now possess. If we take, let us say, the "Annals of Ulster", which treat of Ireland and Irish history from about the year 444, but of which the written copy dates only from the 15th century, we find that they contain from the year 496 to 884 as many as eighteen records of eclipses and comets, and all these agree exactly to the day and hour with the calculations of modern astronomers. How impossible it is to keep such records unless written memoranda are made of them at the time by eyewitnesses is shown by the fact that Bede, born in 675, in recording the great solar eclipse which took place only eleven years before his own birth, is yet two days astray in his date; while on the other hand the "Annals of Ulster" give, not only the correct day, but the correct hour, thus showing that their compiler, Cathal Maguire, had access either to the original, or a copy of an original, account by an eyewitness. Whenever any side-lights have been thrown from an external quarter on the Irish annals, either from Cymric, Saxon, or Continental sources, they have always tended to show their accuracy. We may take it then without any credulity on our part, that Irish history as recorded in the annals may be pretty well relied upon from the 4th century onward. The Annals of Ulster are a chronicle of medieval Ireland. ... An elite covenant of followers that show anarchist like behavior but have a strong protection guideline for other memebers. ... Total eclipse redirects here. ... Comet Hale-Bopp Comet McNaught as seen from Swifts Creek, Victoria, Australia on 23 January 2007 A comet is a small body in the solar system that orbits the Sun and (at least occasionally) exhibits a coma (or atmosphere) and/or a tail â€” both primarily from the effects of...

The first scholar whom we know to have written connected annals was Tighearnach, Abbott of Clonmacnoise, who died in 1088. He began in Latin with the founding of Rome; later on he makes occasional mention of Irish affairs, and lays it down that Irish history is not to be trusted before the reign of Cimbaed, that is, prior to about the year 300 BC, Omnia monimeta Scotorum [the Irish were always called Scotti till into the late Middle Ages] usque Cimbaed incerta erant. In the 4th century BC the references to Ireland become fuller and more numerous, they are partly in Latin, partly in Irish, but towards the end of the work Latin gives way to the native speech. The greatest book of annals, with a few trifling exceptions also the latest, is known under the title of the "Four Masters". It is evident from the entries that the compilers of the "annals of Ulster" and the rest copied from ancient originals. In the "Annals of Ulster" for instance, we read under the year 439 Chronicon magnum scriptum est, at the years 467 and 468 the compiler writes sic in libro Cuanach inveni, at 482 ut Cuana scriptsit, at 507 secundum librum Mochod, at 628 sicut in libro Dubhdaleithe narratur, etc. No nation in Europe can boast of so continuous and voluminous a history preserved in a vernacular literature. The only surviving history of Ireland as distinguished from annals was written by Geoffrey Keating, a learned priest, in the first half of the 17th century; it also is taken, almost exclusively, from the old vellum manuscripts then surviving, but which mostly perished, as Keating no doubt foresaw they would, in the cataclysm of the Cromwellian wars. Signature page from the Annals of the Four Masters Entry for A.D. 432 The Annals of the Four Masters or the Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland by the Four Masters are a chronicle of medieval Irish history. ... Seathrún Céitinn, known in English as Geoffrey Keating, was a 17th century Irish clergyman, poet and historian. ...

Irish Poetry

Main articles: Irish poetry and Bardic poetry

There is no other vernacular poetry in Europe which has gone through so long, so unbroken, and so interesting a period of development as that of the Irish. The oldest poems are ascribed to the early Milesians and are perhaps the most ancient pieces of vernacular literature existing. None of the early poems rhymed. There is little we can see to distinguish them from prose except a strong tendency, as in the Germanic languages, toward alliteration, and a leaning toward dissyllables. They are also so ancient as to be unintelligible without heavy glosses. It is a tremendous claim to make for the Celt that he "taught Europe to rhyme", yet it has often been made for him, and not by himself, but by such men as Zeuss, the father of Celtic learning, Constantine Nigra, and others. Certain it is that by the time of the Irish mission to the continent, as early as the 7th century, we find the Irish had brought the art of rhyming verses to a high pitch of perfection, that is, centuries before most of the vernacular literatures of Europe knew anything at all about it. Nor are their rhymes only such as we are accustomed to in English, French, or German poetry, for they delighted not only in full rhymes, like these nations, but also in assonances, like the Spaniards, and they often thought more of a middle rhyme than of an end rhyme. The following Latin verses, written no doubt after his native models by Aengus Mac Tipraite some time prior to the year 704, will give the reader an idea of the middle or interlinear rhyming which the Irish have practiced from the earliest times down to the present day: A 1907 engraving of William Butler Yeats, one of Irelands best-known poets. ... Bardic Poetry refers to the writings of poets trained in the Bardic Schools of Ireland and the Gaelic parts of Scotland, as they existed down to about the middle of the 17th century, or, in Scotland, the early 18th century. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... A Gloss–Margin text, is a note or notation (even 1-word), but often phrases, or sentences-(paragraph) found in documents, manuscripts, etc. ... A rhyme is a repetition of identical or similar terminal sounds in two or more different words and is most often used in poetry. ... It has been suggested that Anglo-Saxon mission be merged into this article or section. ... The 7th century is the period from 601 - 700 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian Era. ...

Martinus mirus more

Ore laudavit Deum,

Puro Corde cantavit

Atque amavit Eum.

Among the few surviving Old Irish poems of this early period is Pangur Bán, probably written in Reichenau abbey shortly after the year 800. Pangur Bán is a poem, written in Gaelic, by an anonymous 8th-century Irish monk about his cat. ... 15th-century towers on the Romanesque church of Sts Peter and Paul in Reichenau-Niederzell Reichenau Island lies in Lake Constance in southern Germany, at approximately 47°42′ N 9°4′ E. It lies between the Gnadensee and the Untersee, almost due west of the city of Constance. ...

A very curious and interesting peculiarity of a certain sort of Irish verse is a desire to end a second line with a word with a syllable more than that which ends the first, the stress of the voice being thrown back a syllable in the last word of the second line. Thus, if the first line end with an accented monosyllable, the second line will end with a dissyllabic word accented on its first syllable, or if the first line end with a dissyllable accented on its penultimate the second line will end with a trisyllable accented on its ante-penultimate. This is called aird-rinn in Irish, as:

Fall'n the land of learned mén

The bardic band is fállen,

None now learn a song to sing

For long our fern is fading.

This metre, which from its popularity must be termed the "hexameter of the Irish", is named Deibhidhe (D'yevvee), and well shows in the last two lines the internal rhyme to which we refer. If it be maintained, as Thurneysen maintains, that the Irish derived their rhyming verses from the Latins, it seems necessary to account for the peculiar forms that so much of this verse assumed in Irish, for the merest glance will show that the earliest Irish verse is full of tours de force, like this aird-runn, which cannot have been derived from Latin. After the 7th century the Irish brought their rhyming system to a pitch of perfection undreamt of by any nation in Europe, even at the present day, and it is no exaggeration to say that perhaps by no people was poetry so cultivated and, better still, so remunerated as in Ireland. Hexameter is a literary and poetic form, consisting of six metrical feet per line as in the Iliad. ... Eduard Rudolf Thurneysen (March 14, 1857–9 August 1940) was a Swiss linguist and celticist. ...

There were two kinds of poets known to the early Gael. the principle of those was called the filè; there were seven grades of filès, the most exalted being called an ollamh. These last were so highly esteemed that the annalists often give their obituaries, as though they were so many princes. It took from twelve to twenty years to arrive at this dignity. Some fragments of the old metrical textbooks still exist, showing the courses required from the various grades of poets, in pre-Norse times. One of these, in elucidation of the metric, gives the first lines of three hundred and fifty different poems, all no doubt well known at the time of writing, but of which only about three have come down entire to our own time. If there were seven species of filès there were sixteen grades of bards, each with a different name, and each had its own peculiar metres (of which the Irish had over 300) allotted to him. During the wars with the Norsemen the bards suffered fearfully, and it must have been at this time, that is during the 9th and 10th centuries, that the finely-drawn distinction between poets and bards seems to have come to an end. So highly esteemed was the poetic art in Ireland that Keating in his history tells us that at one time no less than a third of the patrician families of Ireland followed that profession. These constituted a heavy drain on the resources of the country, and at three different periods in Irish history the people tried to shake off their incubus. However, Columcille, who was a poet himself, befriended them; at the Synod of Drum Ceat, in the 6th century, their numbers were reduced and they were shorn of many of their prerogatives; but, on the other hand, public lands were set apart for their colleges, and these continued until the later English conquest, when those who escaped the spear of Elizabeth fell beneath the sword of Cromwell. A fili was a member of an elite class of poets in Ireland, up into the Renaissance, when the Irish class system was dismantled. ... Ollam, also known as Ollamh, Ollave and Ollav, is a master in a particular trade or skill. ... A bard is a poet or singer, in religious or feudal contexts. ... Saint Columba (7 December 521 - 9 June 597), the Latinized version of the Irish name Colmcille (Old Irish Columb Cille) meaning Dove of the church, was the most outstanding among the group of Dark Ages Irish missionary monks who reintroduced Christianity to Scotland and the north of England. ...

References

This article incorporates text from the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913.

The public domain comprises the body of all creative works and other knowledge—writing, artwork, music, science, inventions, and others—in which no person or organization has any proprietary interest. ... The Catholic Encyclopedia, also referred to today as the Old Catholic Encyclopedia, is an English-language encyclopedia published in 1913 by The Encyclopedia Press. ...

See also

• Irish literature
• Irish mythology
• Ogham

For a comparatively small country, Ireland has made a disproportionate contribution to world literature in all its branches. ... The mythology of pre-Christian Ireland did not entirely survive the conversion to Christianity, but much of it was preserved, shorn of its religious meanings, in medieval Irish literature, which represents the most extensive and best preserved of all the branches of Celtic mythology. ... Note: This article contains special characters. ...

External links

• Catholic Encyclopedia
• Irish Script on Screen