The Coming of Cuculain

by Standish James O'Grady

Fine Hardcover Fine Hardcover. Clean First Thus. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. Fine Blue 95 pp Hardcover Reprint of this Great Irish Cattle Raid epic retold as Mythic novel of Maeve, Cuchulain. Standish O'Grady Captures the 'Irish feel of the pacing'. Clean, tight great shape. No jacket was issued by publisher Clean hardcover NOT a library book.

116 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1894

About the author

Standish James O'Grady was an Irish author, journalist, and historian. He was inspired by Sylvester O'Halloran and played a formative role in the Celtic Revival, publishing the tales of Irish mythology, as History of Ireland: Heroic Period (1878), arguing that the Gaelic tradition had rival only from the tales of Homeric Greece. O'Grady was a paradox for his times, proud of his Gaelic heritage, he was also a member of the Church of Ireland, a champion of aristocratic virtues (particularly decrying bourgeois values and the uprooting cosmopolitanism of modernity) and at one point advocated a revitalised Irish people taking over the British Empire and renaming it the Anglo-Irish Empire.

O'Grady's influence crossed the divide of the Anglo-Irish and Irish-Ireland traditions in literature. His influence was explicitly stated by the Abbey Theatre set with Lady Gregory, W.B. Yeats and George William Russell attributing their interest in the Fenian Cycle of Gaelic tradition in part to him. Yeats is quoted on the influence of Standish: "he started us all". Some of the figures associated with the political party Sinn Féin, including its founder Arthur Griffith, had positive things to say about his efforts in helping to retrieve from the past the Gaelic heroic outlook.

Reviews

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rousing stuff.

[Jason Barnhart · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's old, the translation is slightly clumsy, it's an epic poem and trying to jump the gap between oral tradition and written. That's a difficult task. It's less dense and no more difficult to read than the Iliad or the Odyssey and an easy read compared to something like the The Song Of Roland. ...really, it's "ancient" literature, one of those "it's either worth it to you to read or it's not" sort of things. It completes a chunk of my education and at any rate no one should be worse off for reading much of anything.

In the offing, it's something that anyone of Celtic/Irish heritage might read for the sake of cultural literacy and a more complete classical education if nothing more. It's probably on par with Euripides whether Greek scholars would agree or not.