Pagan past and Christian present in early Irish literature

by Kim McCone

An integrated approach to medieval Ireland's vast extant literature has long been hampered by a tendency to partition it into secular and ecclesiastical genres, the former written mostly in Old or Middle Irish and the latter in Latin or the vernacular.

Medievalists dealing with obviously clerical sources, especially the Hiberno-Latin ones most readily accessible to them, have increasingly come to recognise the wide and up-to-date reading, erudite sophistication, and reasonably typical medieval western outlook, scriptural and patristic orientation behind them.

This book examines various aspects of a thorough intermingling of native with biblical and other imported elements in the monastic milieu responsible for early medieval Ireland’s extensive literary output in Latin and the vernacular. It is argued that this was informed by a coherent overall framework firmly rooted, with appropriate adaptations, in a Christian worldview.

Genres: Nonfiction, Paganism, Ireland, Medieval

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

Reviews

[Maya · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 please read my review at Celtic Scholar

[reoccurrence]

Despite being an academic text McCone’s book is very beginner friendly. As I’ve been reading about Ireland and the countries literary tradition I’ve noticed that there is this idea of a “Pre-catholic” Ireland and the literature written during this time is a view of the country before the influence of St. Patrick/Catholicism. If I am understanding correctly this “school” is called Nativist. McCone is an “anti-nativist” and this book is a refutation about the idea that these tales like The Táin are glimpses into Pre-Catholic Ireland. McCone has extensively provided evidence of the influence the catholic monks had on these oral stories they transcribed. The monks had combined Catholicism and the Gaelic/Celtic mythology into an interesting combination. “At all events, research of this type needs to be carried out with more sophistication and less wishful thinking than have commonly been brought to bear upon it hitherto. Even so, the results will often be far from certain, and should not be allowed to detract from study of the actually attested construct in its own terms. Far from being mere clumsy and unimaginative redactors of oral traditions, early Christian Ireland's monastic moulders and transmitters of senchus combined literary creativity with intellectual rigour to such an extent in their pursuit of a coherent 'native Christian' mytho-history of their island and race that they have had little difficulty in duping many a modern scholar inclined to patronise their efforts. Instead of cocking a snook, we should take our hats off to them.”