Irish Literary Tradition

with Maxim Fomin

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Week 8:

Irish historical and pseudo-historical writings:

From The Book of Invasions (Lebor Gabala) to The Elements of the History of Ireland (Foras Feasa ar Éireann)

The ditto that the pre-history should come before history is an epitome of Irish thinking and Irish writing. Long before the foreign visitor who brought Christianity to Ireland - St. Patrick - laid his foot upon the Irish soil and started the course of the Irish history, the native Irish tried to memorise the long row of generations that came before them in the pre-historic tradition known as senchas, i.e. ‘history’. These were genealogical narratives that told of the origins of various groups and septs throughout Ireland. Later, the disparate genealogies were incorporated into a corpus of legends that came to be known as Lebor Gabala ‘The Book of Invasions’ that tried to contextualise Ireland and the course of its history (down to Patrick) and pre-history (before Patrick) in the pan-Christian context.

Reading list:

J. Carey, ‘The baptism of the Gods’, in: J. Carey. The single ray of the sun: religious speculation in early Ireland. Andover (MA) - Aberystwyth, 1999;

A. & B. Rees. Celtic Heritage: The Enduring Tradition. London, 1961, 40, 97-100, 104-5.

B. Maier, Dictionary of Celtic Religion and Culture, (translated by Cyril Edwards), various entries.

Select a Week:

Week 1 Introduction go
Week 2Encounters of saints with heroes go
Week 3The Ulster cycle of tales go
Week 4Early Irish native literary tradition go
Week 5Middle Irish satirical wiritngs go
Week 6Middle Irish romances & Fenian lays go
Week 7The penetration of saga material into the folklore tradition go
Week 8Irish historical and pseudo-historical writings go
Week 9The Irish lords on the continent go
Week 10The decline of the bardic tradition go
Week 11Late nineteenth century Irish literary revival go
Week 12Twentieth century Irish literature go