Medieval Irish Research Articles

The ‘annalistic section’ of Cogad Gáedel re Gallaib

Cogad Gáedel re Gallaib ‘The war of the Irish and the Foreigners’, one of the best known medieval Irish historical sagas, celebrates the deeds of the Irish king Brian Boru, culminating in his victory and death at the battle of Clontarf in ad 1014. The text did much to establish Brian’s reputation and the fame of the battle of Clontarf in Irish historiography. While most of the saga records Brian’s achievements, the early parts treat of events prior to his reign. This paper is an analysis of the function and chronology of these early sections. The conclusion is that the term ‘annalistic section’, often applied to them, is misleading. Such a term conceals the artistry and purpose of the author and conveys a mistaken view of their historicity.

Dekoracje irlandzkich psałterzy

A particularly interesting question in medieval Irish literature, is decorating Psalters. Since the Biblical psalms were very popular among the Anglo-Saxons, they were often copied and decorated also in Ireland. Initially, the decoration was limited to ornamentation letters. Later there were elements depicting scenes from the life of David, which had its origins, according to F. Henry, in the Carolingian art. In this article, the author presents in chronological order all decorated Irish and Anglo-Saxon Psalters, which show visible influence of the Irish art (Cathach, Durham Cassiodorus, Psalter of Cantorbury, Cotton Psalter, Southampton Psalter, Ricemarcus’ Psalter, Liber hymnorum, Psalter of the St. Caimin).

LINGUISTIC EDUCATION AND LITERARY CREATIVITY IN MEDIEVAL IRELAND

Texts in medieval Irish were traditionally used as a source from which to excavate the remnants of a radically ancient language and world-view – Celtic, oral, pre- Christian, ultimately Indo-European. In the past twenty years a new perspective has become dominant, emphasising the sophisticated contemporary concerns of the monastic literati who composed the texts that have come down to us. However, the disjuncture between those two approaches remains problematic. This article attempts a new approach to the question, emphasising the educational and scholarly context of medieval Irish creativity. Many of the monuments of the early Irish language are part of an enquiry into the history of language and languages, in which Irish interacts closely with the « three sacred languages » and especially Latin; the texts’ depiction of the pagan past of Ireland is oriented through a scholarly engagement with Graeco-Roman paganism; and some of the key discourses of Irish saga literature are influenced by the programmes and methodologies of the Latin-based educational system of the time, especially questionand-answer dialogues. The article applies this approach in a case study from the heroic tale Tochmarc Emire, « The Wooing of Emer », in which a riddling dialogue between lovers is shown to be directly related to the lore of the canonical glossaries of Old Irish. .

The Sexual Shame of the Chaste: ‘Abortion Miracles’ in Early Medieval Saints’ Lives

The Sexual Shame of the Chaste: ‘Abortion Miracles’ in Early Medieval Saints’ Lives

Medieval Irish chronicles reveal persistent volcanic forcing of severe winter cold events, 431–1649 CE

Explosive volcanism resulting in stratospheric injection of sulfate aerosol is a major driver of regional to global climatic variability on interannual and longer timescales. However, much of our knowledge of the climatic impact of volcanism derives from the limited number of eruptions that have occurred in the modern period during which meteorological instrumental records are available. We present a uniquely long historical record of severe short-term cold events from Irish chronicles, 431–1649 CE, and test the association between cold event occurrence and explosive volcanism. Thirty eight (79%) of 48 volcanic events identified in the sulfate deposition record of the Greenland Ice Sheet Project 2 ice-core correspond to 37 (54%) of 69 cold events in this 1219 year period. We show this association to be statistically significant at the 99.7% confidence level, revealing both the consistency of response to explosive volcanism for Ireland’s climatically sensitive Northeast Atlantic location and the large proportional contribution of volcanism to historic cold event frequencies here. Our results expose, moreover, the extent to which volcanism has impacted winter-season climate for the region, and can help to further resolve the complex spatial patterns of Northern Hemisphere winter-season cooling versus warming after major eruptions.

Extraordinary Weapons, Heroic Ethics, and Royal Justice in Early Irish Literature

ABSTRACT The synthesis of pagan and Christian cosmologies that informs medieval Irish letters incorporates prestigious and extraordinary weapons, and other such objects into an all-compassing Nature, in which they are preferentially associated with the themes of heroic ethics, legitimate and just royal rule, and the removal of errant rulers through a cosmic deployment of the “instruments of their fate.” Yet only rhetorical effects of literary depiction raise such weapons to a status approximating the preternatural.

A reconsideration of the authorship and transmission of <i>Cogadh Gáedhel re Gallaibh</i>

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 Friars in Medieval Britain: Proceedings of the 2007 Harlaxton Symposium edited by Nicholas Rogers, Shaun Tyas, Donington, 2010, pp. xii + 372, £49.50 hbk, and Medieval Irish Dominican Studies by Benedict O'Sullivan OP, edited by Hugh Fenning OP, Four Courts Press, Dublin, 2009, pp. 237, £50, hbk

New BlackfriarsVolume 94, Issue 1049 p. 121-123 Reviews THE FRIARS IN MEDIEVAL BRITAIN: PROCEEDINGS OF THE 2007 HARLAXTON SYMPOSIUM edited by Nicholas Rogers BARNABY HUGHES, BARNABY HUGHESSearch for more papers by this author BARNABY HUGHES, BARNABY HUGHESSearch for more papers by this author First published: 11 December 2012 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-2005.2012.01524_6.xRead the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Volume94, Issue1049January 2013Pages 121-123 RelatedInformation

‘Holding up a lamp to the Sun’: Hiberno-Papal Relations and the Construction of Irish Orthodoxy in John Lynch’s Cambrensis Eversus (1662)

Competing confessional claims to the early church played a hugely significant part in the revival of the writing of ecclesiastical history during the period of the European Reformations. This question of Christian origins led rival religious groups to contest vigorously the right to claim to be the early church’s legitimate heirs. Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century works of ecclesiastical history would, moreover, strive to attain and preserve the rigorous standards set by Renaissance humanist scholarship and, in turn, exploit any perceived weaknesses in the work of their opponents in this regard. This essay examines a seventeenth-century Irish example of such ecclesiastical history-writing: Cambrensis Eversus (‘Cambrensis Refuted’), written in Latin, largely for a continental audience, by a County Galway priest-scholar, John Lynch (1599/1600–73), and published in St Malo in 1662. The work is ostensibly a reply to the twelfth-century works of Giraldus Cambrensis (c.1146–1223) on Ireland, which had attained a new importance in the confessional controversies of the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, cited afresh by scholars as evidence of the depraved nature of the medieval Irish (and, by extension, of medieval Irish Catholicism) and the need for their moral and religious reform. This had a particular resonance in the Reformation period: if medieval Catholicism could be proved to have been in a state of decay, then this would further legitimize the argument that it was in need of reform and would underscore the correctness of the Protestant return to a purer and more authentic early Christianity.

Rediscovering medieval Ireland: Irish chancery rolls and the historian

This paper, which marks the launching of a major new digital resource, considers the value, and also some of the pitfalls, of chancery and other royal records as a source for the historian of later medieval Ireland. Despite losses over the centuries, the remaining record material is rich, and like the history of fourteenthand early fifteenth-century Ireland itselfhas been too little studied. In common with other, more glamorous, sources, government records need to be approached with awareness of their conventions and purposes. The paper suggests some ways in which the chancery rolls might illuminate themes such as Ireland's place in the 'English empire', the reach and modulations of crown government within Ireland, and the relations between English-style public authority and the Gaelic polity. Introduction The public launching in May 2012 of the first product of a major historical undertaking the recovery and reassembling, so far as is possible, of the lost records of the medieval Irish chancery coincided with a melancholy anniversary.1 Exactly 90 years before, the Public Record Office of Ireland, in the Four Courts, was under occupation by anti-Treaty forces; it was destroyed on 30 June 1922.2 Apart from some charred fragments, the only medieval rolls to escape the fire-storm were three or four that had recently been in use, and so were in the search room rather than the record store, together with two others that had escaped from official custody in the past, and were repurchased in 1968. * Author's e-mail: r.f.frame@durham.ac.uk doi: 10.3318/PRIAC.2013.1 13.09 1 This paper is a revised version of a public lecture given at Trinity College Dublin on 10 May 2012 to mark the launching of 'Calendar of Irish chancery letters, c. 1244-1509' (www.tcd.ie/chancery, accessed 5 February 2013): hereafter cited as 'CIRCLE'. For what follows, see Philomena Connolly, Medieval record sources (Maynooth Research Guides for Irish Local History, 4, Dublin, 2002), 9-18; and the full description of the project and its context in Peter Crooks, 'Reconstructing the past: the case of the medieval Irish chancery rolls', in N.M. Dawson and F.M. Larkin (ed.), Lawyers, the law and history: Irish legal history society discourses and papers, 2006-2011 (Dublin, forthcoming). I am indebted to Dr Crooks for letting me read this paper in advance of publication, and also for helpful comments on a draft of the present text. Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy Vol. 113C, 193-217 © 2013 Royal Irish Academy This content downloaded from 207.46.13.73 on Tue, 09 Aug 2016 04:30:17 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

“The Supreme Question”: Gratifying the Loathly Lady in James Joyce’s Ulysses

James Joyce’s artist-hero, Stephen Dedalus, seems to live in a universe that teems with grotesque female monsters, from the Classical Gorgon to the sexually aggressive New Woman. It is a world that resembles the mythic early Ireland depicted in medieval manuscripts, replete with loathly ladies. The archetypal loathly lady developed into a distinctive figure in medieval Irish and English literature: the shape-shifting Sovranty Hag. These symbolic female characters are imbued with the potential to transform both themselves and their chosen consorts into something lovely and powerful through the fulfillment of a quest. The artist-hero Stephen stumbles in and out of several recognizable loathly-lady quests in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Ulysses . This article examines the amalgamation of Irish and English medieval tales of Stephen’s unresolved quest as well as the significance of Joyce’s revival of the powerful medieval loathly lady.

Love Magic in Medieval Irish Penitentials, Law and Literature: A Dynamic Perspective

Love Magic in Medieval Irish Penitentials, Law and Literature: A Dynamic Perspective

The present and the past in medieval Irish chronicles. By Nicholas Evans. Pp xv, 292, illus. Woodbridge: Boydell Press. 2010. £60.

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The Transformation of the Irish Church in the Twelfth Century (review)

Reviewed by: The Transformation of the Irish Church in the Twelfth Century Kevin Murray The Transformation of the Irish Church in the Twelfth Century. By Marie Therese Flanagan. [Studies in Celtic History, XXIX.] (Rochester, NY: The Boydell Press. 2010. Pp. xii, 295. $99.00. ISBN 978-1-843-83597-4.) This, the twenty-ninth volume in the prestigious Studies in Celtic History series, is a worthy addition to the library of anyone interested in medieval Irish history and in the Irish church's engagement with the wider European reform movement. With chapters on sources, medieval dioceses, bishops and ecclesiastical culture, St. Malachy and monastic reform, the re-formation of lay [End Page 353] society, and lay piety and devotion, Marie Therese Flanagan traces the development of the Irish church and church practice in the twelfth century in the course of analyzing the Irish "manifestation of a much wider European phenomenon" (p. xi). Armed with this volume and Ireland and Europe in the Twelfth Century: Reform and Renewal, ed. Damian Bracken and Dagmar Ó Riain-Raedel (Portland, OR, 2006), scholars are now well equipped with broad-based studies of this most important of developments in medieval Ireland. Within the volume under review here, the importance of certain individuals to the broader narrative is highlighted and teased out. These include Cellach of Armagh; Gillebertus of Limerick; and, in particular, St. Malachy—the chapter devoted to his role in introducing a new monasticism is thorough, learned, and highly informative. The author makes the interesting observation (pp. 161-62) that "it is difficult to point to a major pre-twelfth-century monastery that survived without being transformed into a monastic community following either the Benedictine or Augustinian rules, into a cathedral church, into a parish church, or disappeared altogether." This shows how completely the ecclesiastical landscape was transformed in Ireland during this period. In this study, Flanagan has scrutinized an abundance of archaeological, architectural, hagiographical, historical, and literary sources. One way in which this study can be extended is by further analysis of an even larger corpus of relevant Irish-language texts. To take just a few examples: Ruairí Ó hUiginn's reading (in Éigse 32) of Tochmarc Emire in the light of the reform agenda concerning marriage could be drawn upon here; Acallam na Senórach could be mined further, particularly considering Máire Ní Mhaonaigh's treatment (in Ireland and Europe in the Twelfth Century) of its constituent theological debates; and John de Courcy's interest in the combined cult of Patrick, Brigid, and Colm Cille in the mid-1180s (discussed on p. 223) also may be reflected in the Acallam (as pointed out by Ann Dooley in Éigse 34). Furthermore, Immram Snédgusa 7 Maic Ríagla and associated Columban voyage narratives also are ripe for inclusion in any such study. But this is work for another day. A particular issue in dealing with relevant Irish-language sources,however, is the problem of dating them closely. This often proves impossible to achieve. Issues raised in a seminal article by Gearóid Mac Eoin (in Proceedings of the British Academy, 68 [1982]) still remain relevant despite the advances made in the study of Middle Irish in the interim. This is an issue for some of the texts analyzed by Flanagan: thus, dating Betha Cholmáin maic Luacháin so closely (to 1122) is hard to sustain, particularly since the Life contains discrete linguistic strata; referring to the Acallam as a "mid-twelfth-century text" (pp. 23-24) would no longer reflect current thinking (see Ann Dooley in Éigse 34); and accepting the seventh-century dating of [End Page 354] Amra Coluim Chille (p. 28) may no longer be tenable in light of the ongoing work of Jacopo Bisagni. These few examples show how treacherous the ground is for those wishing to contextualize and utilize Irish-language material within a broader historical framework. The standard of printing and presentation throughout is high, and only a small number of mistakes and misprints are evident: thousandth anniversary (p. xi: recte nine-hundredth anniversary); O'Boyle (p. 29n141/p. 272: recte Boyle); Breatnach (p. 31n148: recte Bhreathnach); 7-6 (p. 39n20: recte 7-26); Imar (p. 43: recte...

Homiletic Texts and the Transmission of Eschatological Apocrypha in a Medieval Irish Context

Within the corpus of extant vernacular medieval Irish sermons, the dominance of eschatological themes borrowed from apocrypha is striking. This raises the question whether this phenomenon is accidental or symptomatic of Irish preaching in the period. The answer may lie in the early medieval Latin collections of homilies which demonstrate affiliations with Insular material. Three eschatological apocrypha which were particularly popular in medieval Ireland and England were chosen as test cases to investigate the nature of this influence : ‘The Three Utterances’, ‘The Apocalypse of Thomas’ and ‘The Seven Heavens’ apocryphon. The interrelated manuscript sources in which these texts survive are discussed, as well as the possible context of their dissemination.

‘No Milkless Cow’: The Cross of Christ in Medieval Irish Literature

The cross of Christ in the Middle Ages was the most powerful symbol of God’s victory over sin, death and the forces of evil, while also representing the most abject suffering and degradation of Jesus Christ, the God-Man. A simplistic reading of the evolution of the theology of the cross during this period posits a transition from the early medieval victorious and heroic Christ figure, reigning and triumphant upon the cross, to a late medieval emaciated and tortured object of pity whose ignominious death was supposed to elicit heartfelt compassion for his plight and sincere sorrow for the sin which placed him on the beams of the tree of crucifixion. Of course, there is a great deal of value in this argument, and much evidence might be brought forward to support its central thesis. However, it should not be pushed too far; it might also be remembered that the essential paradox of Christ the victor-victim is a constant theme in Christian theology, expressed in the sixth-century Vexilla regis in its identification of the cross as ‘victim of the passion’s glory, by which life brought death to an end, and, by death, gave life again’ and in the hymn Victimae paschali laudes from the central medieval period: ‘Death with life contended, combat strangely ended, life’s own champion slain yet lives to reign’. The image of the victorious cross of Christ, conceived of as simultaneously an instrument of triumph and of torture, would persist right through the late medieval period, despite the development of a greater emphasis on the physical sufferings of Christ in his passion and their ever more graphic depictions. This essay, which examines the way in which the cross of Christ is presented in medieval Irish literature, provides sufficient examples to make this point clear; these are drawn from a variety of sources including religious verse, saints’ lives, medieval travel accounts and sermon material. Of course, these examples are best viewed within the context of a broader medieval European devotional culture from which Ireland was certainly not immune.

Of Vanishing Fetuses and Maidens Made-Again: Abortion, Restored Virginity, and Similar Scenarios in Medieval Irish Hagiography and Penitentials

Of Vanishing Fetuses and Maidens Made-Again: Abortion, Restored Virginity, and Similar Scenarios in Medieval Irish Hagiography and Penitentials

The Present and the Past in Medieval Irish Chronicles - By Nicholas Evans

The Present and the Past in Medieval Irish Chronicles - By Nicholas Evans

Holy Souls and a Holy Community:

ABSTRACTThis article explores the conception of monastic life and its goals in an early medieval Irish saint’s life, Adomnán’s Vita Columbae (VC), written at the end of the seventh century on the monastic island of Iona by Columba’s eighth successor as the abbot of the monastery. Previous studies on the image of monastic life in VC have concentrated on the physical descriptions of the buildings and the layout of the monastery; the aim of this article is to turn attention to the spiritual aspects of monastic life by exploring Adomnán’s understanding of its nature and goals. The VC should be read as a carefully crafted theological work dealing with such topics as virtue, sin, and salvation, communitarian concepts crucial to the institutional life of the monastery.

Nicholas Evans, The Present and the Past in Medieval Irish Chronicles. (Studies in Celtic History, 27.) Woodbridge, Eng., and Rochester, N.Y.: Boydell and Brewer, 2010. Pp. xv, 289; 9 black-and-white figures, tables, and 2 maps. $115.

Nicholas Evans, <i>The Present and the Past in Medieval Irish Chronicles</i>. (Studies in Celtic History, 27.) Woodbridge, Eng., and Rochester, N.Y.: Boydell and Brewer, 2010. Pp. xv, 289; 9 black-and-white figures, tables, and 2 maps. $115.