Medieval Ireland Story and History
with Professor Máire Ní Mhaonaigh (Dept. of Anglo-Saxon, Norse, & Celtic, University of Cambridge)
at the School of Music, Woodbridge School, Burkitt Road, Woodbridge IP12 4JH,
on Saturday 16th March 2019.
Medieval Ireland boasts a rich and varied literary heritage. Drawing on its colourful heroes and anti-heroes, kings and goddesses, their deeper meanings will be examined, as well as the light they cast on the society of the time.
Provisional Programme
10.00 – 10.30: Coffee on arrival
10.30 – 11.30: Medieval Ireland: Story or History?
11.30 – 12.00: Coffee break
12.00 – 13.00: Creating Ireland’s Story: ‘The Book of Invasions’ and Related Texts
13.00 – 14.00: Lunch break
14.00 – 14.45: Creating Ireland’ Story: Other Worlds
14.45 – 15.15: Tea break
15.15 – 16.00: Medieval Ireland in her Own Words
16.00: Thanks and Close
About Professor Máire Ní Mhaonaigh
Máire Ní Mhaonaigh is Professor of Celtic and Medieval Studies at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of St John’s College. She has published widely on many aspects of medieval Irish literature and history; Ireland’s place in the wider world; and Vikings. Among her publications are Brian Boru: Ireland’s Greatest King?, as well as a two-volume co-edited history of conversion in Ireland, Britain and Scandinavia, Converting the Isles.
She is currently co-leading a research project augmenting the electronic Dictionary of the Irish language (www.dil.ie) and together with her fellow collaborators has written a forthcoming history of Ireland based on a selection of medieval words.
Some Suggestions for Optional Background Reading
John Carey, A Single Ray of the Sun: Religious Speculation in Early Ireland (Aberystwyth, 1999)
John Carey, ‘Lebor Gabála [The Book of Invasions] and the Legendary History of Ireland’, in Medieval Celtic Literature and Society, ed. Helen Fulton (Dublin, 2005), pp. 32-48
Michael Clarke, ‘An Irish Achilles and a Greek Cú Chulainn’, in Ulidia 2: Proceedings of the Second Conference on the Ulster Cycles of Tales, ed. Brian Ó Catháin and Ruairí Ó hUiginn (Maynooth, 2009), pp. 238-51
Fergus Kelly, A Guide to Early Irish Law, Early Irish Law Series 1(Dublin, 1988), especially, pp. 1-27
Máire Ní Mhaonaigh, ‘The Literature of Medieval Ireland: from the Vikings to the Normans’, in The Cambridge History of Irish Literature, ed. Margaret Kelleher and Philip O’Leary, vol. 1 (Cambridge, 2006), pp. 32-73
Máire Ní Mhaonaigh, ‘The Peripheral Centre: Writing History on the Western ‘Fringe’, Interfaces No. 4 (2017): available online, https://riviste.unimi.it/interfaces/article/view/9469/0
Tomás Ó Cathasaigh, ‘The Literature of Medieval Ireland: from St Patrick to the Vikings’, in The Cambridge History of Irish Literature, ed. Margaret Kelleher and Philip O’Leary, vol. 1 (Cambridge, 2006)