Foras Feasa Research Articles

Collection, space and display: a case-study in the symbolic materiality of print and manuscript cultures in seventeenth-century Ireland

On the basis of a case-study centred on the experience of Sir John Perceval (d.1686) of north Cork, it is argued that books and their spatial location constituted elements within a broader decorative ensemble expressive of cultural hegemony. Moreover, Perceval’s intellectually-diverse world of print is contrasted with the marginalised and geographically-adjacent sphere of Gaelic script as embodied by the poet and scribe Eoghan Ó Caoimh (d.1726). Notwithstanding the dynamic ideological significance of a text such as Keating’s Foras Feasa ar Éirinn, its first appearance in print in a 1723 English translation, is emblematic of the cultural and social authority of early modern print in a colonial milieu. Reference is made to the library of James Butler (d.1688), first duke of Ormond, and the Parisian book purchases of Francis FitzMaurice (d.1818) and his wife Anastasia (d.1799), third earl and countess of Kerry, by way of illustration of print’s uncontested dominance among elite Irish readers and patrons of the trade in books.

"Deoraidhthe Síora gan Sgíth gan Sos": John O'Mahony and the Development of a Diasporic Gaelic Print Culture

"Deoraidhthe Síora gan Sgíth gan Sos":John O'Mahony and the Development of a Diasporic Gaelic Print Culture Patrick J. Mahoney (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution John Francis O'Mahony, 1816–77, Matthew Brady Studio, ca. 1860–70. Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Frederick Hill Meserve Collection. [End Page 110] In the summer of 1857 John O'Mahony put the finishing touches on his translation of Geoffrey Keating's Foras Feasa ar Éirinn in his office in Brooklyn, New York. He had arrived in the empire city from France four years earlier aboard the Humboldt.1 As a well-known political exile who had played a central role in the Young Ireland rebellion of 1848, his arrival was much anticipated within the postfamine Irish community in the United States. In the years that followed, O'Mahony became one of the most important figures in reorganizing and harnessing the fervor of militant nationalism that resonated with many postfamine immigrants. This was a community that was both large and linguistically diverse in the city of New York. Historian Kenneth E. Nilsen has noted that at the time of O'Mahony's arrival, one in every four persons in the city had been born in Ireland and as many as 100,000 were native Irish speakers. Despite this, most were illiterate in their own language and thus left very little historical record behind.2 But while O'Mahony's revolutionary activities have received substantial attention in studies of Fenianism—the movement he helped to found in 1858—his scholarly and cultural pursuits have received comparatively little consideration. A number of scholars have even asserted that the Fenians had little interest in the promotion of the [End Page 111] Irish language.3 Patrick Steward and Bryan McGovern claim that the "rapidly dying Gaelic language was of little relevance to the IRB and its stateside auxiliary," and that "restoration of the Celtic tongue was not a Fenian priority."4 Such positions are likely the result of what Vincent Morley points to as "the inability of so many historians of Ireland to read primary sources in the indigenous language of the country."5 The exception within the historiographical landscape is Fionnuala Uí Fhlannagáin's Fíníní Mheiriceá agus an Ghaeilge (2008), which highlights the individual linguistic backgrounds of a number of Fenians, including O'Mahony, and their efforts to promote the Irish language.6 A perusal of archival sources reveals further Fenian engagement with Irish in both functional and symbolic capacities. Reflecting the surreptitious tone of an internal circular to Fenian leaders in 1870 that covertly announced renewed Fenian effort to invade Canada, General John O'Neill reinforced the veiled language of a particularly incendiary paragraph by asking its recipients, "Thigin thú?"7 Two years later a group of O'Mahony's followers in Boston sent a lengthy correspondence in Irish to the Garde Républicaine outlining the historical relationship between the Irish and French republican causes. Explaining their choice of language, the writers later noted: "We did not wish to send a copy in English, which is to us the language of tyrants."8 [End Page 112] Many more examples like this surely exist. However, it is O'Mahony's marrying of the Irish language and the Fenian cause that is the most glaring historiographical gap. This is represented by his most ambitious feat, the translation of Geoffrey Keating's seventeenth-century foundational Irish history Foras Feasa ar Éirinn, and by his editorial work focused on language and culture in the Irish American press. After the release of the second edition of his translation in 1866, one reviewer in the Fenian organ the Irish People contended in inflated terms that O'Mahony's scholarly pursuits had been the most crucial element in bringing about a resurgence of Irish nationalism during the late 1850s, christening his effort "the textbook of modern Irish revolution."9 This article will consider O'Mahony's work as a translator and as a newspaper editor with the Irish People (New York) and highlight how he set out to bridge the gap between higher and lower forms of Irish in popular...

Representation of the tales of the Ulster cycle in Foras Feasa ar Éirinn : organisation of discourse and contexts

This article examines the patterns of history-writing in Geoffrey Keating’s retellings of the tales from the Ulster cycle in Foras Feasa ar Éirinn. The study illustrates how Keating’s familiarity with Irish medieval sources, his clerical education, which placed considerable emphasis on rhetoric, and his awareness of the English and continental traditions of history-writing, influenced the composition of the fragment of Foras Feasa ar Éirinn dedicated to the tales from the Ulster cycle. The author shows that in this fragment Keating tended to apply native narrative strategies more. As regards authorial intentions, Keating used the selected tales from the Ulster cycle as exempla of sin and its drastic consequences, which may explain his particular interest in the death tales.

Representation of the tales of the Ulster Cycle in Foras Feasa ar Éirinn : sources and features of the retellings

Representation of the tales of the Ulster Cycle in <i>Foras Feasa ar Éirinn</i> : sources and features of the retellings

Ó Chéitinn go Conradh: The Revivalists and the 1916 Rising

Was the Gaelic League the ‘breeding ground’ for the IRB? Was the Irish language the Language of the Revolution? These parting words from the O’Rahilly (Ua Rathghaille) border on absurd black humour but like so many other Gaelic Leaguers their journey to the Rising, which will be reviewed in this paper was anything but humorous. This title reflects the long heritage from which the Gaelic League and Language Movement emerged, emanating from Geoffrey Keating’s (Seathrun Ceitinn) seventeenth century comprehensive history of Ireland, Foras Feasa ar Eirinn (c.1634) and resulting in a language and literary revival in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It was in the spirit of this heritage that the Keating Branch of the Gaelic League was founded in Dublin by Sean O Ceallaigh in 1901, following on the inspiration of Father Peter Yorke’s rising speech entitled ‘The Turning of the Tide’ in 1899. The Branch title links the Gaelic League with this strong scholarly heritage but the Keating Branch would also take on another role in the run up to the Easter Rising in 1916, as it became known as a recruiting ground for Volunteers and IRB. However after the Rising the Gaelic League and Language Movement renewed the focus on Irish heritage and culture taking a new role in Irish society, forming the basis for a new Irish identity in twentieth century Ireland. This approach acknowledged the need for action linking the work of Keating with a new approach to literary practice and processes.

The Poetics and Politics of Legend: Geoffrey Keating’s Foras Feasa ar Éirinn and the Invention of Irish History

Introduction: Truth and Error in History of IrelandIn polemical introduction to his 1634 Foras Feasa ar Eirinn (Foundation of Knowledge on Ireland, often called History of Ireland), Geoffrey Keating criticizes Meredith Hanmer's late-sixteenth-century Chronicle of Ireland for including early modern Irish narrative Cath Fionntragha (The Battle of Ventry) when it is clear that Ireland 's historians do not regard this tale as staire firinnighe (true history) but assert that it is finnsceul filidheachta (poetic legend ) (1: 50-51).1 Keating accuses Welsh historian of misrepresenting Ireland 's historical records by inserting this less-than-plausible tale as if it were characteristic of Irish history when Cath Fionntragha's legendary status is well recognized. As his refutation of Hanmer suggests, one of Keating's aims in writing Foras Feasa was to correct oft-repeated claim that Ireland had no reliable history and to provide a foundation, or foras, for future histories of Ireland. Without doubt, Keating's text did prove central to writing of Irish history for many centuries to come: it was rapidly translated into Latin and English, enjoyed a wide circulation for a manuscript text, and formed a pillar of Irish historical canon. Today it remains central to study of early mod- ern Irish national identities.The Foras Feasa is a text highly attuned to genre, and Keating was well aware that Irish records frequently mixed historical and legendary ac- counts. Claiming to possess ability Hanmer lacks in distinguishing be- tween genres, Keating occasionally informs his reader that certain episodes included in Foras Feasa are not to be regarded as historical and should in- stead be considered legends. Nevertheless, Keating retains sources he identi- fies as legendary, even those that had been criticized by British writers for their implausibility, such as accounts claiming that Ireland was first settled by No- ah's granddaughter (1: 140-47). The Foras Feasa asserts necessity of includ- ing all of Ireland's seanchas (ancient traditions) in telling of its history by employing chronological organization of annals and chronicles along- side taxonomic organization of tales by theme or type often used to present scela (stories or tales).2 If Hanmer's failing was his inability to distinguish between history and legend, Foras Feasa brings two together on a struc- tural level. The Foras Feasa deploys all of Ireland 's traditions and organiza- tional structures in its anticolonialist reclamation of Irish historical study for Irish scholars who were able, as colonialist writers were not, to read sean- chas.3 By casting Irish legends as rich material rather than defective method of Irish history, Keating makes a claim for a rigorous historicist method that at once honors principles of new humanism and yet pre- serves Irishness in retelling and reframing of Irish past.Keating's foundation for producing Irish knowledge imagines Irish history as incorporating all of seanchas, positing historian as collector and in- terpreter of a variety of texts, both legendary and historical. Keating deploys this generic inclusiveness against colonialist works claiming that Ireland 's chronicles, many of which related island 's independence from Britain until twelfth-century Anglo-Norman invasion, were essentially legends. The Foras Feasa endeavored to refute what Brendan Bradshaw has termed the most damaging of all English calumnies against Irish, namely that their native land constituted a mere appendage of realm of England (Apolo- gist 172). Keating's project is widely accepted as an anticolonial one in that it sought, by attacking scholarship and credentials of writers who could not read seanchas of Ireland, to counter texts written to legitimate Tudor reconquest of Ireland.4Anticolonialism and national identity are closely connected in Keating's work. …

A reconsideration of the authorship and transmission of &lt;i&gt;Cogadh Gáedhel re Gallaibh&lt;/i&gt;

The eleventh-/twelfth-century encomiastic biography of Brian Boroma (ob. 1014), Cogadh Gaedhel re Gallaibh ('The War of the Irish with the Foreigners'), was the most important text in cementing Brian's reputation as the medieval Irish king par excellence. Scholarly consensus considers it to have been written as a work of propaganda in favour of Brian's great-grandson, Muirchertach Ua Briain {ob. 1119), whose father, Tairdelbach, had earlier wrested the kingship of Dal Cais from his uncle, Donnchad (son of Brian). In this article it will be shown that, contrary to previous scholarly opinion, the text actually portrays Donnchad in a positive light. It will be argued that there may have been multiple versions of the text in existence but that the only surviving complete copy was written or reworked in favour of Donnchad's descendants (and not for Muirchertach) and it is this version which has influenced subsequent accounts of Brian's story, right into the modern period. Introduction With the possible exception of St Patrick, no single medieval figure has remained within Irish consciousness to the same degree as the eleventh-century king of Ireland Brian Boroma (Brian Boru) (see Figures 1 and 3). He owes this position to his supposed leadership of a 'national' struggle against the Vikings, * Author's e-mail: denis.casey@helsinki.fi doi: 10.33 18/PRIAC.201 3. 113.03 1 This article would not have been possible without the help and generosity of Dr Maire Ni Mhaonaigh, who read earlier drafts and discussed Cogadh Gaedhel re Gallaibh with me at length. Thank you to the following who also read and commented on earlier drafts of this article: Dr Elizabeth Boyle, Professor Sean Duffy, Dr Deborah Hayden, Dr Meidhbhin Ni Urdail and the editors and anonymous peer-reviewers of these Proceedings. I am also grateful to Lenore Fischer for bringing work on the Book of Howth to my attention and to attendees of the 2010 Tionol (where an earlier version of this article was presented). Needless to say, none of the above are responsible for any errors or omissions in this article. I would also like to express my gratitude for support I have received from the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic, University of Cambridge; funding from the Society for Renaissance Studies and a visiting fellowship at An Foras Feasa, National University of Ireland, Maynooth, which afforded me the opportunity to complete this article. Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy Vol. 113C, 139-161 © 2013 Royal Irish Academy This content downloaded from 157.55.39.220 on Fri, 02 Sep 2016 04:27:11 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

The Annals of the Four Masters: Irish History, Kingship and Society in the Early Seventeenth Century (review)

Reviewed by: The Annals of the Four Masters: Irish History, Kingship and Society in the Early Seventeenth Century Thomas O'Connor The Annals of the Four Masters: Irish History, Kingship and Society in the Early Seventeenth Century. By Bernadette Cunningham. (Dublin: Four Courts Press. 2010. Distrib. by ISBS, Portland, OR. Pp 348. $70.00. ISBN 978-1-846-82203-2.) Like iconic texts the world over, the Annals of the Four Masters, an early-seventeenth- century manuscript compilation of Irish history in Gaelic, is a work frequently cited, seldom read, and rather poorly understood. From John O'Donovan's partial edition of 1851 through the various instrumentalizations of the text by cultural agents associated consecutively with the Gaelic revival, the nascent Irish state, and the reformed "brown" Franciscans, this seminal text has been rather badly served by the Irish academic community, who acknowledged it without explaining its significance. Thus, the work of Paul Walsh and other twentieth-century scholars notwithstanding, Bernadette Cunningham's volume is both timely, in that it subjects yet another cultural icon to dispassionate intellectual scrutiny, and also significant, because the Annals emerge from this study with their importance contextualized not only within the early-modern Irish but also the European intellectual world. The contrast frequently drawn by Cunningham between the apparent insularism of the Annals and the internationalism of contemporary Gaelic works like [End Page 811] Geoffrey Keating's Foras Feasa ar Éireann (c. 1634) serves to specify rather than devalue the importance of the continental link. The book is divided into three parts. In the first, consisting of three chapters, Cunninghnam sets the background for the text in the continental connections of the Irish Franciscans (one of the Annals' editors, Micheál Ó Cléirigh, belonged to the order). She then presents an overview of the Irish annalistic traditions before engaging in a detailed investigation of the approach of the text's editors (traditionally called "The Four Masters") to the past. In the second part, she examines the form and structure of the text, the methodology of the editors, and the way that the material was collected, transcribed, and arranged. She takes two case studies (the annalists' treatment of secular heroes and religious figures) to explain how the Four Masters' reverence for the tradition in no way stymied their central aim of establishing the history of Ireland as chronological, contextualized, and continuous. The last part of the book consists of a chapter on the scholarly and patronage networks that made the work possible. In the tantalizingly and somewhat disappointingly brief concluding chapter she draws the many threads of the investigation together in a more philosophical commentary on the Annals as a paradigmatic exercise in making history, or, as she puts it elsewhere, weaving together a new and comprehensive historical compilation, encompassing origin legends, genealogies of saints and king lists as well as annals . . . in the manner of the great medieval miscellanies, but now addressed to a wider readership because of the potential of access to print. (p. 42) The potential of publishing looms large on the horizon of the editors' motivation and goes far to explain the editing and selection processes that took the Annals from their multiple manuscript sources to the versions of the text now held in the libraries of University and Trinity Colleges and the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin. It also explains, Cunningham suggests, why the editors eschewed the term king (rí) when speaking of the minor "kings" in Ireland, preferring tighearna ("lord") to underscore the importance of the high kingship of Ireland and hence its historical conformity with the emerging nation-states familiar to the eventual intended audience. Interestingly, there is no hint here of a transfer of sovereignty by disgruntled Gaelic underlings to the king of Spain (p. 122), but rather a practical acceptance of the legitimacy of the Stuarts. For these editors, what counted was the sovereign power of the king of neither Spain nor England but rather the kingship of Ireland. In chapter 7, Cunningham discusses the ideological concerns underpinning the selection and arrangement of the entries, stressing their belief in the value of memory itself in the new Ireland emerging from the great travails of the sixteenth...

Foras Feasa ar Eirinn and the Historical Origins of Irish Catholic Identity

The way Irish people think about themselves is influenced by, and influences, the way they think about the past. Their communal memories and perceptions of the past are shaped, to a significant extent, by the choices that were made by past historians when they selected from the available evidence and told the story of the past as they saw it. Geoffrey Keating's Foras Feasa ar Éirinn (c.1634), itself a summary and selection of earlier historical writing, has been particularly influential in dictating the Irish historical canon for many generations down to the mid-twentieth century. Conscious of the persuasive power of historical narrative, Geoffrey Keating (c. 1580-1644) molded his account of the ancient origins and emergence of the Irish Catholic community to serve the needs of seventeenth-century Irish Catholics. The particular combination of myth, religion, and history popularized in Foras Feasa largely defined Irish Catholicism for over three centuries. 1

Ethnohistorical Preservation and Persuasion in Foras Feasa ar Eirinn

Although the title of Geoffrey Keating's Foras Feasa ar Éirinn has often been translated as "The History of Ireland," it more accurately translates as "The Basis of Knowledge about Ireland." The distinction is worth noting because it raises the question: To what extent can we consider Keating's work a history? What constitutes Keating's basis of knowledge about the Irish past--that is, the range of sources he employs--is telling. Because Keating includes a great deal of myth, legend, hagiography, and genealogy shaped by successive generations to suit changing political agendas, the conventional wisdom about FFÉ is that it cannot be relied upon for historical accuracy. 1 Yet Keating's FFÉ reveals a complicated vision of historical truth that cannot be narrowed to the merely factual. For a better understanding of this vision, I will examine Keating's methodology for choosing and presenting his source materials. This may provide some insight into early developments in Irish historiography. However, my ultimate goal is to present FFÉ as an example of one form of history with very different objectives than modern academic history, but one that is no less contemporary or consequential. [End Page 147]

Geoffrey Keating’s Eochair Sgiath An Aifrinn and the Catholic Reformation in Ireland

The name of Geoffrey Keating is familiar to generations of students of Irish language and literature. His prose works are fine examples of seventeenth-century Irish writing. He was credited by scholars of Irish with having saved from oblivion many stories of the Gaelic heroes of old in his magnum opus, the Foras Feasa ar Éirinn, a compendium of knowledge on the history of Ireland. Writing in the early part of the seventeenth century, when the native Irish system of learning and patronage of scholars was disintegrating, Keating synopsized many manuscript sources for the history of Ireland into a flowing text full of stories and curiosities. His writings were frequently transcribed and are preserved in countless manuscript copies.Kearing’s literary stature has meant that his tracts were more read for their language and style than studied for their content and it may appear curious at first sight to discover that this father figure of early Irish history and the preserver of the Irish language also wrote two theological tracts, on a continental Catholic Reformation model. This should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with Kearing’s background. Although subsequently hailed as a champion of Gaelic Ireland, Keating was not a product of that society. In fact he was of Anglo-Norman (Old English) descent. He was ordained as a secular priest and was educated at two of the continental colleges set up to train Irishmen for the priesthood, Bordeaux and Rheims, where he came under English Jesuit influence. The precise dates of his sojourn on the continent are not known, but pre-date 1619. It is thought he was born about 1570 and died about 1644, spending most of his life as a priest working in Munster.