The second SAMS talk of the semester will take place on Wednesday, 19 February, 5.15pm – O'Rahilly Building 1.56 when Dr Pádraic Moran will deliver a paper on ‘Learning Greek in the ninth century: three bilingual Irish manuscripts’.

Cork Studies in Celtic Literatures 9

Title: Pwyll y Pader: A Medieval Welsh Tract on the Meaning of the Lord’s Prayer according to Hugh of Saint-Victor

Author: Elena Parina and Erich Poppe, with Sergey Ivanov

ISBN: 978-0995546981

Buy from the UCC Bookshop €12.00

Na Ranna Gaeilge, COC ~ Cumann na Scríbheann nGaedhilge

Annual UCC/ITS Seminar

Saturday, 9 November, 2024

West Wing 5, Main Quadrangle, University College Cork

The subject of this year’s event will be

Sgéalta Thomáis Uí Chathasaigh: Mayo Stories told by Thomas Casey,

edited by Douglas Hyde, Irish Texts Society Main Series, vol. 36 (1939).

The first talk in the School of Irish Learning Autumn Seminar Series, 2024 will take place on Thursday, 10 October at 5pm in West Wing 5.

This seminar, titled 'Mall an deithfir-se ar Dhonnchadh: Slow hurrying, headless bodies and untuned harps. Tadhg Mac Bruaideadha’s rebuke of the earl of Thomond for tarrying at the court of Elizabeth I', will be delivered by Emma Nic Cárthaigh.

The first SAMS talk of this academic year will take place today, 6.00pm – West Wing 9, when Nina Cnockaert-Guillou will deliver a paper on ‘Place-names, Storytelling and Intertextuality in Medieval Ireland’.

Pictured here are the speakers at the very successful seminar entitled 'A Feast Of Celtic Saints' held on Friday 24 May in UCC to honour the work of Prof. Máire Herbert and Prof. Pádraig Ó Riain. 

From L to R: Dr Diarmuid Ó Riain, Dr Caitríóna Ó Dochartaigh, Prof. Barry Lewis, Dr Edel Bhreathnach, Dr Karen Jankulak and Dr Colmán Ó Clabaigh.

The theme chosen for the seminar reflected the enormous contribution that Profs Herbert and Ó Riain have made to the field of medieval Celtic hagiography.  

The third and final volume of Apocrypha Hiberniae II: Apocalyptica has just been published, as part of the Corpus Christianorum Series Apocryphorum!

To celebrate the scholarship of Prof. Máire Herbert and Prof. Pádraig Ó Riain, Roinn na Sean- agus na Meán-Ghaeilge at University College Cork are organising a one-day seminar — 'A Feast of Celtic Saints' — in their honour on Friday 24 May, 2024. 

The second seminar in the Series will take place on Thursday,  22 February at 5.00 pm in West Wing 9.  This seminar, titled ‘Toasting the Oatcake: an exploration of the material and culinary culture of the oatcake in Irish vernacular tradition’, will be delivered by food historian and food writer, Regina Sexton.

This Thursday, 15 February, the first seminar, entitled Chasing Down placenames in Acallam na Senórach: locating Co. Down sites in the stories of Finn mac Cumaill will be delivered by medieval historian Anne Connon, Adjunct Senior Lecturer to the Department of Early and Medieval Irish, UCC. The seminar take place at 5.00 pm in West Wing 9.

Our next SAMS talk will take place on Wednesday 28 February at 5:15pm in West Wing 5 when Natasha Dukelow, School of History, UCC will address us on the subject of The compiler of the Liber exemplorum and the Franciscan intellectual networks in thirteenth-century Ireland.

Na Ranna Gaeilge, COC ~ Cumann na Scríbheann nGaedhilge

Annual UCC/ITS Seminar

Saturday, 4 November, 2023

West Wing 6, Main Quadrangle, University College Cork

The subject of this year’s event will be

Caithréim Conghail Cláiringhnigh

‘The Martial Career of Conghal Cláiringhneach’, edited by P.M. MacSweeney,

Irish Texts Society Main Series, vol. 5 (1904).

The first SAMS talk of this semester takes place tomorrow (Wednesday) in ORB 2.02 at 6pm.

Comhghairdeachas le Gormfhlaith Ní Shíocháin Ní Bheoláin  a bhuaigh Scoláireacht Chiste Teach an Ardmhéara sa Ghaeilge

Bronnadh BA (Ceol agus Gaeilge) uirthi an samhradh so; tá MA sa tSean agus sa Mheán-Ghaeilge ar siúl aici fé láthair.

Congratulations to our first-year students Evan Daly and Ellen O'Connor, who are the 2022/23 recipients of the Celtic Civilisation Kavanagh Entrance Scholarships.

The scholarships were awarded officially at a ceremony presided over by the UCC President Prof John O’Halloran in January 2023.

For more information on the Kavanagh Entrance Scholarships, see Kavanagh Celtic Civilisation Entrance Scholarship | University College Cork (ucc.ie)

UCC Entrance Scholarship Awards Ceremony | University College Cork

Launch of Volumes 7 and 8 of Cork Studies in Celtic Literatures on Thursday next, 26 January, at 6.15 p.m.  in the Seomra Caidrimh, UCC.

Dr Mikael Males, University of Oslo

A (re)assessment of Irish influences in Scandinavia before c. AD 1000

17:00-18:00, 16 November, ORB 2.55

Project: Ultonia - Cultural Dynamics in medieval Ulster: a shared inheritance

18 Months, Fixed-Term, Whole-time Post

It is just a few days until one of the most important times in the Irish traditional year: Samhain, or 1 November and the night preceding it. That night is of course also the night of Hallowe’en; and Samhain too has had potent supernatural associations for as far back as our records extend. (See for instance “Secrets at Samhain”, posted on News / Events this time last year.) There are many strange things about Samhain; one is its name, which is derived from sam-, the Celtic root meaning “summer” (cf. Welsh haf, English “summer”). How can this be so, seeing that Samhain marks the traditional beginning of winter?

Na Ranna Gaeilge, COC ~ Cumann na Scríbheann nGaedhilge

Annual UCC/ITS Seminar

Saturday, 5 November, 2022

West Wing 6, Main Quadrangle, University College Cork

The subject of this year’s event will be

Oidheadh Chloinne hUisneach

‘The Violent Death of the Children of Uisneach’, ed. Caoimhín Mac Giolla Léith

Irish Texts Society Main Series, volume 56 (1992)

Dr James Chetwood, IRC Postdoctoral Fellow, Digital Humanities, University College Cork

The Medieval Transformation of English Personal Naming

Wednesday 19 October, 5.00-6:00pm - ORB 2.55

Irish Sagas Online as a Teaching Resource: The Case of Tochmarc Emire ‘The Wooing of Emer’   
CACSSS Seminar Room, G27, Wednesday 22 June, 2.00–5.30

This seminar will be streamed live on MS Teams via the following link: ISO: Online Seminar

The Department of Early and Medieval Irish, University College Cork is delighted to announce a one-day seminar on the Cycles of the Kings which will take place live in the CACSSS Seminar Room, O'Rahilly Building, UCC on Friday 8 April beginning at 10.00a.m.

This seminar will be streamed live on MS Teams via the following link: Cycles of the Kings Seminar

Buy from the UCC Shop €15.00

This project led by Dr Caitríona Ó Dochartaigh, UCC and Dr Nioclás Mac Cathmhaoil, UU Magee, was inspired by the Educational Dialogue strand of the Shared Island Initiative which calls on educators North and South to learn from each other and jointly reflect on the future of education on the island.

In the Saint Patrick’s Day season, we offer a sampling of some of the themes that will be explored in the forthcoming online MA in Irish Mythology and Folklore, offered by the Department of Early and Medieval Irish and by the Department of Folklore and Ethnology beginning in September 2022.

https://www.ucc.ie/en/maimf/ 

The third talk in the School of Irish Learning, UCC, Spring Seminar Series, 2022, will take place on Thursday, 7th April at 5pm in West Wing 5. 

Emmet Taylor, a Ph.D. student of the Department of Early and Medieval Irish, will deliver a paper entitled 'Products of their Times: the Historic Context of the Medieval Irish Heroic Bands'.

This seminar, conducted through English, will take place in WW 5. It will also be live-streamed on MS Teams via the following link: SIL Seminar Series

Wednesday 16 February, 5:15pm

Dr Michael J. Kelly

'Postulating a Visigothic 'Human Nature'

ORB 123

Dé Máirt, 1 Feabhra, ar 6.00 i.n.

Beidh Caitríona Ó Dochartaigh ag tabhairt cainte dar teideal ‘Contextualising Saltair na Rann within the tradition of biblical paraphrase’ mar chuid de shraith sheimineár ar líne atá a reáchtáil ag Roinn na Gaeilge, NUIG, féach: http://www.nuigalway.ie/gaeilge/poetsandpoetry/

Teideal agus Achoimre - Contextualising Saltair na Rann

Brigit is unquestionably the most important sacred female figure in the traditions of Ireland and Scotland; but all the same there is uncertainty as to who, or indeed what, she was. On the one hand, abundant sources going back at least as far as the seventh century speak of a holy woman who died in 524, founder of the great church of Kildare which at one time claimed supremacy over all other churches in Ireland. But other texts speak of a goddess Brigit, presiding over poetry, metalworking and healing; and Brigit’s name is directly related to that of a British goddess, whom the Romans called Brigantia.

The literature of medieval Ireland, like other medieval literatures, is full of references to the mystery of the Incarnation, and to the paradoxical image that expresses it: the Ultimate Reality, infinitely vaster than the universe, appearing as a helpless infant in the squalor of a stable. Especially striking is the evocation in the Old Irish cosmological treatise The Ever-New Tongue:

‘What thing could be more wondrous than the Child to be asleep in the arms of the Virgin, and yet a trembling upon creation and the angels? He has closed his fist around the seven heavens and the earth and hell and the many surrounding seas. The Child asleep in the arms of the Virgin, and yet a trembling upon the angels, and the heavens, and the lands with their inhabitants, and the whales in the seas, and upon the dwellers in hell—for fear of his power, and in hopes of deliverance from vexing him.’ (The Ever-New Tongue: The Text in the Book of Lismore, trans. J. Carey, Brepols 2018, p. 150)

Buy from the UCC Shop €12.00

Beidh an tríú caint i Sraith Seimineár an Fhómhair, Scoil Léann na Gaeilge, ar siúl Déardaoin, 2 Nollaig, ar a 5:00 i.n. Tabharfaidh an Dr Seán Ua Súilleabháin, léachtóir i Roinn na Nua-Ghaeilge, páipéar ar: ‘Caoineadh Airt Uí Laoghaire: Téacs, Traidisiún agus Aistriúchán’.

Is as Gaeilge a bheidh an chaint seo agus tabharfar í ar an gcampas in WW_5. Tá fáilte roimh chách ach teachtaireacht a sheoladh go tomas.omurchu@ucc.ie. Beidh teacht ar an gcaint trí MS Teams, leis, ag an nasc so a leanas: SIL Seminar Series

Congratulations to Dr Tomás Mac Conmara of the Cork Folklore Project who discussed his recent book The Scariff Martyrs: War, Murder and Memory in East Clare with Dr Myles Dungan on The History Show on Sunday 21 November.  It was a riveting piece of radio detailing a terrible incident which happened on the bridge of Killaloe in 1920 when four men were shot by British Forces, who claimed they had attempted to escape custody. Locals insisted they were murdered. Listen back to the interview.

Beidh Comhdháil Éigse Cholm Cille na bliana seo ar 19-20 Samhain.

Labhróidh Caitríona Ó Dochartaigh ar ‘Colm Cille: Tuartha, Tairngreachtaí agus Fáistine Fhileata’ ar an Satharn, 20ú lá mí na Samhna, ar 4.45 i.n. agus is as Gaeilge a thabharfar an chaint.

Teideal agus Achoimre

Department of Early and Medieval Irish

Research Seminar 

Anne Connon, Adjunct Senior Lecturer, University College Cork 

Master Class on the Irish Genealogies 

Wednesday 17 November: 3pm 

Streamed live via MS Teams at this link: 

Join Anne Connon - Master Class (Microsoft Teams Meeting) 

  All are welcome to attend

Transition Year Programme in the Arts and Humanities

Programme dates: 28 February – 4 March, 2022

Subject to Public Health Guidelines

Beidh an tarna léacht i Sraith Seimineár an Fhómhair, Scoil Léann na Gaeilge, ar siúl Déardaoin, 18 Samhain, ar a 5 i.n. Sa seimineár seo, labhróidh an tUas. Cormac Ó hAodha, mac léinn PhD de chuid Roinn an Bhéaloidis, ar an téama ‘Bailiú amhrán i Múscraí le 125 bliain anuas’.

Is as Gaeilge a thabharfar an chaint seo, ar an gcampas in WW_5. Fáilte roimh chách, ach nóta a chur go c.ogealbhain@ucc.ie. Beidh teacht ar an gcaint trí MS Teams, leis, ag an nasc seo a leanas: SIL Seminar Series

Anybody interested in Irish legend will know that Samain, the night before the first of November, is a time when the natural and supernatural dimensions of existence come particularly close together: a time when mortals can visit the Otherworld, and when the inhabitants of the Otherworld can visit us – often in dangerous ways.

Buy from the UCC Shop €12.00

The series will begin on Thursday, 21 October at 5pm with a special event to celebrate the recent return to Cork of the 15th-century Irish manuscript known now as the Book of Lismore.

Na Ranna Gaeilge, COC ~ Cumann na Scríbheann nGaedhilge
Annual UCC/ITS Seminar
Saturday, 6 November, 2021
West Wing 6, Main Quadrangle, University College Cork

The subject of this event will be Gabháltais Shearluis Mhóir, edited by Douglas Hyde, Irish Texts Society Main Series vol. 19 (1919).
The seminar will also be broadcast through Zoom: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/88154947438

The series will begin on Thursday, 21 October at 5pm. The first seminar will be conducted in English; the following two will be conducted in Irish.

All three events will take place via MS Teams). Everyone is welcome to attend.

The first seminar in the series will comprise a special event to celebrate the recent return to Cork of the 15th-century Irish manuscript known now as the Book of Lismore.

Scél lem dúib: Gerard Murphy's Early Irish Lyrics Revisited.

A Symposium to Celebrate the 65th Anniversary of the Publication of the Anthology.

The event will take place Friday-Saturday, 29-30 October.  

[Friday from 12.15pm to 6pm and Saturday from 12pm to 5pm]

The symposium will be streamed live via MS Teams.

A Hundred Years Ago – A Royal Poet

The Department of Early and Medieval Irish warmly welcomes Anne Connon to a three-year appointment as Adjunct Senior Lecturer. Anne, who is currently based at Ohio Dominican University, Columbus, Ohio, USA, has previously taught at NUIG and at the University of Toronto, and has held research appointments with the Moore Institute and with the Discovery Programme. Her area of expertise is early medieval Irish history, notably the Middle Irish catalogue of famous women known as the Banshenchas. We look forward to benefiting from her knowledge, and to her participation in the life of the Department.

Roinn na Sean- agus na Meán-Ghaeilge welcome the publication of a new book by Dr Tadhg Ó Síocháin, Caoilte sa Luath-Fhiannaíocht (Coiscéim, 2021). Based on his PhD thesis which he completed in the Department in 2018, this is the first in-depth study of the character of Caoilte as presented in the early Finn Cycle. 

Professor John Carey will deliver this year's O'Donnell Lecture at 5pm on Friday 14 May via Microsoft Teams. Admission is free, all are welcome. https://www.english.ox.ac.uk/event/odonnell-lecture-2021  

John Carey, 'The Kindred of a Child without a Father: Merlin's British Forebears and Irish Cousins' 

Geoffrey of Monmouth, the twelfth-century writer who turned the Welsh Myrddin into the Merlin of Arthurian romance, in fact told two Merlin stories: there is Merlin the all-knowing child, son of a mysterious spirit; and Merlin the wild man, uttering prophecies from his hiding-place in the forest. This lecture will undertake to situate both Merlins within the broader context of insular Celtic traditions, and will explore the question of the original significance of the name Myrddin itself.

Looking at traditions concerning the four ‘cross-quarter days’ that divided the ancient Irish year – Lugnasad (1 August), Samain (1 November), Imbolc (1 February) and Beltaine (1 May) – we find multiple supernatural females. Lugnasad was associated with the god Lug’s fostermother Tailtiu, and with the witch Carman; Samain was called the feast of Mongfhind, a fairy woman to whom ‘women and the common people’ prayed on that night; and 1 February is of course the feastday of St Brigit, who cannot be entirely dissociated from the older goddess Brigit. But what about Beltaine?

You might expect that some of the stories about saints for the 1st of April would be hard to swallow, and in this respect Ireland does not disappoint: this is the feastday of Tuán son of Cairell. According to the late Old Irish Tale of Tuán, he was one of the first group of settlers in Ireland after the Flood, and then lived on through subsequent ages by regenerating in various shapes: stag, boar, cormorant, salmon. The salmon was cooked and eaten by the queen of Ulster, who bore Tuán again as a human child: when he grew up, he became a Christian and told his story to various saints. ‘Every history and genealogy in Ireland derives from Tuán son of Cairell.’ Ireland may be the only Christian country with a reincarnated saint. 

Tuán is listed as a saint for the 1st of April in the Martyrology of Tallaght. For a translation of the Tale of Tuán, see J. T. Koch and J. Carey, The Celtic Heroic Age (4th ed. 2003), pp. 223-5; for an edition, see J. Carey, ‘Scél Tuáin meic Chairill’, Ériu 35 (1984) 93-111. 

Toward the end of the account of Saint Patrick’s mission written by Tírechán, in the seventh century, there is a strange little story about the saint’s youthful experiences as a slave in Ireland. According to Tírechán, Patrick’s master was a druid called Miliucc, and during this time he himself was known as Succetus; he instructed Miliucc’s children in Christian doctrine, ‘and he taught them in silence under oath for fear of the druid’. In a dream one night, Miliucc saw sparks from the mouth of ‘the fool Succetus’ passing to his children, who were burnt to ashes, and other strange things. The symbolism of the dream is then explained, but we are given no explanation of why the young Patrick is called a ‘fool’, or fatuus. Was it because he had not yet learned to speak Irish well? Was it because his constant praying seemed unhinged? Or was he a sort of jester in Miliucc’s household? This single word hints at a part of Patrick’s story that has otherwise been forgotten.

The second talk in the School of Irish Learning Spring Seminar Series 2021 will take place this coming Thursday, 18 March, at 4pm. 

We look forward to seeing you on Thursday next, when our recently retired colleague, Dr Marie-Annick Desplanques, will speak on her work, over many years, developing the UCC Folklore and Ethnology Archive (UCCFEA).

Please contact emi@ucc.ie for the MS Teams link.

The School of Irish Learning is delighted to announce our Spring Seminar Series for 2021.
The series will begin this Thursday, 25 February, at 4pm. All lectures will be in English and will take place by means of our online platform MS Teams.

We look forward to seeing you on Thursday for some detective work from Cian Ó Cionnfhaolaidh, a Ph.D. student with the Locus Project in the Department of Early and Medieval Irish, as he presents his methodology and findings in his search to locate the boundaries of some ancient territories in Leinster and Ulster.

Everyone is welcome to attend.
Please contact emi@ucc.ie for the MS Teams link.