Sean- agus Meán-Ghaeilge / Early and Medieval Irish - Doctoral Theses

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Betha Cholmáin maic Luacháin: an ecclesiastical microcosm of the twelfth-century Irish midlands
(University College Cork, 2013) Dillon, Gavin David; Herbert, Máire
Betha Cholmáin maic Luacháin (BCh) is a key source of information about a small ecclesiastical community of the Irish midlands in the medieval period. BCh is one of the longest medieval Irish hagiographic texts. A sole copy exists. Scholarly concern with manuscript Rennes 598, and the Life of Colmán therein, diminished following the 1911 edition of BCh. The most attention paid to BCh in the following decades focused largely on its onomastic information. The necessary detailed study of the text has not been undertaken. The present work is an initial view of significant areas of interaction between the church of Lann and its ecclesiastical, social and political milieu. While social and cultural aspects of the text may constitute the focus of this study, linguistic data is also investigated, complementary to evidence regarding its social and political testimony. In this way, light is cast on a complex ecclesiastical microcosm in the twelfth-century Irish midlands. In keeping with recent methodological work in the field a variety of tools are used to aid investigation, and to show the Life within its genre and wider context. An interdisciplinary approach will bring together strands of literary, cultural, archaeological, onomastic, historical, geographical, genealogical and hagiographical information, with reference to linguistic evidence where appropriate. This thesis seeks to suggest a template for studies undertaken on smaller church communities, and is set out in two main sections. The first section investigates the figure of the saint, his life, church, the manuscript source and the combination of prose and verse in the text. The second section examines the testimony of the Life regarding the ecclesiastical and secular concerns of the community of Lann, and how these concerns are represented. Evidence regarding the members of this community and their interaction with the church and the wider world is also discussed.
Between the worlds: otherworld women as intermediaries in early Irish literature
(University College Cork, 2013) Key, Heather Colleen; Carey, John
This thesis examines the ways in which Otherworldly women acted as intermediaries between the Otherworld and mortal world in early Irish literature. First it establishes the position of women in early Ireland so that appropriate comparisons can be made between mortal and Otherworld women throughout the thesis. Also, it defines what is meant by the ‘Otherworld’ and its relevence to the early Irish. It then goes on to discuss the differing goals of various intermediaries in early Irish texts, and in what manner they interact with mortals. It briefly looks at how Otherworld male intermediaries are treated differently in the literature, and why early authors might have used women in these roles as often as they did.
Narratives in early Irish law tracts
(University College Cork, 2014) Qiu, Fangzhe; Carey, John; College of Arts, Celtic Studies and Social Sciences, University College Cork
This thesis presents a study of the 112 narratives collected from the Corpus Iuris Hibernici. The selection of narratives is based on criteria informed by modern narratological theories. The significant presence of narratives in early Irish law tracts appears at odds with the normal conception of law texts as consisting solely of provisions, and therefore needs to be accounted for. Since no systematic study has been conducted of these legal narratives, this thesis serves as an introduction by giving firstly an index of narratives and secondly a categorisation of them in terms of distribution, dates and functions. It then carries out a general analysis of the relationship between legal narratives and early Irish literature, and a selected case study of the relationship between legal narratives and the legal institutions in the context of which the narratives are located. It has become clearer, with the progress of argument, that the use of narratives was an integral part of legal writing in medieval Ireland; and the narratives, though having many idiosyncratic features of themselves, are profoundly connected with the learned tradition at large. The legal narratives reveal the intellectual background and compositional concerns of medieval Irish jurists, and they formed a crucial part of the effort to accommodate law tracts into the dynamic tradition of senchas. Two appendices are included at the end: one consists of translations of 34 narratives from the index, and the other is a critical edition of one of the narratives discussed in detail, together with translations of some relevant passages.
Medieval Irish vision literature: a genre study
(University College Cork, 2014) Volmering, Nicole Johanna Bernartina; Carey, John; Irish Research Council for Humanities and Social Sciences
This dissertation examines medieval literary accounts of visions of the afterlife with an origin or provenance in Ireland from the perspective of genre, analysing their structural and literary characteristics both synchronically and diachronically. To this end, I have developed a new typology of medieval vision literature. I address the question in what manner the internationally attested genre of vision literature is adapted and developed in an Irish literary milieu. I explore this central research question through an interrogation of the typological unity of the key texts, both in formal arrangement and in the eschatological themes they express. My analysis of the structure and rhetoric of these narratives reveals the primary role of identity strategies, question-and-answer patterns and exhortation for their narrative cohesion and didactic function. In addition, I was able to make a formal distinction at text-level between the adaptation of the genre as an autonomous unit and the adaptation of thematic motifs as topoi. This further enabled me to nuance the distribution of characteristic features in the genre. My analysis of the spatial and temporal aspects of the eschatological journey confirms a preoccupation with personal eschatology. It reveals a close connection between the development of the aspects of graded access and trial in the genre and a growing awareness of an interim state of the soul after death. Finally, my dissertation provides new editions, translations and analyses of primary sources. My research breaks new ground in the hitherto underexplored area of genre adaptation in Ireland. In addition, it contributes significantly to our understanding of the nature of vision literature both in an Irish and a European context, and to our knowledge of the transmission of eschatological thought in the Latin West. Discusses the visions of: Laisrén, Fursa, Adomnán, Lóchán, Tnugdal, Owein and Visio Sancti Pauli Redactions VI and XI.
Textual criticism and medieval Irish studies
(University College Cork, 2015) Doran, Michelle Therese; Murray, Kevin; Irish Research Council for Humanities and Social Sciences
Many textual scholars will be aware that the title of the present thesis has been composed in a conscious revisionary relation to Tim William Machan’s influential Textual Criticism and Middle English Texts. (Tim William Machan, Textual Criticism and Middle English Texts (Charlottesville, 1994)). The primary subjects of Machan’s study are works written in English between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, the latter part of the period conventionally labelled Middle English. In contrast, the works with which I am primarily concerned are those written by scholars of Old and Middle Irish in the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Where Machan aims to articulate the textual and cultural factors that characterise Middle English works as Middle English, the purposes of this thesis are (a) to identify the underlying ideological and epistemological perspectives which have informed much of the way in which medieval Irish documents and texts are rendered into modern editions, and (b) to begin to place the editorial theory and methodology of medieval Irish studies within the broader context of Biblical, medieval and modern textual criticism. Hence, the title is Textual Criticism and Medieval Irish Studies, rather than Textual Criticism and Medieval Irish Texts
The Celtic dragon slayer - a literary analysis of Tochmarc Emire in connection with Tristan et Iseut
(University College Cork, 2015) Theuerkauf, Marie-Luise; Carey, John; Neville, Grace; Irish Research Council for Humanities and Social Sciences; College of Arts, Celtic Studies and Social Sciences, University College Cork; University of Notre Dame, United States
As Celtic scholars have long noted, the medieval Irish tale Tochmarc Emire “The Courtship of Emer” is heavily indebted to other medieval Irish texts. In this tale of courtship and otherworldly quests, the Irish hero Cú Chulainn must prove himself worthy of the hand of the noblewoman Emer. Among his overseas adventures, Cú Chulainn rescues a princess from three attackers of the Fomoire. This episode may represent the only medieval Irish example of AT300 “The Dragon Slayer”, a story pattern known from classical models such as the stories of Perseus and Andromeda; and Hercules and Hesione. Moreover, in the company of Cú Chulainn we find a character otherwise unknown to Irish tradition by the name of Drust mac Seirb. This has led scholars to argue that Tochmarc Emire may preserve a Celtic precursor of the Continental Tristan legend, seeing in Drust the Pictish origin of the character Tristan, himself a famous dragon slayer. In this interdisciplinary dissertation, a number of questions are addressed. If the redactor of Tochmarc Emire drew on material from outside Irish tradition, what does this tell us about medieval Irish concepts of literature and genre? Further, what evidence do we have for tracing the origin of the Continental Tristan legend back to Pictland, and what explanation might we offer for a putative Pictish prince featuring in an Irish Dragon Slayer story? Finally, what place does the Dragon Slayer episode occupy within Tochmarc Emire and can we find other narratives, Celtic or classical or other, fitting the pattern of AT300, which may strengthen the link between Tochmarc Emire and Tristan?
Saint, martyr, killer of Christ? The legend of Longinus in medieval Irish tradition
(University College Cork, 2016) Schneider, Nathalie; Herbert, Mary R; Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences
This dissertation is the first comprehensive and synthetic study of the Irish presentation and legends of Longinus. Longinus was the soldier at the crucifixion who pierced Christ with a spear, who believed and, according to some texts, was healed of his blindness by the blood and water issuing from the wound, and who later was martyred for his belief. In my thesis I survey the knowledge and use of the legend of Longinus in Ireland over genres and over time. Sources used for the analyses include iconographic representations of the spear-bearer in manuscripts, metalwork and stone and textual representations of the figure of Longinus ranging over the history of Irish literature from the early medieval to the early modern period, as well as over Irish and HibernoLatin texts. The thesis consists of four core chapters, the analyses of the presentations of Longinus in early-medieval Irish texts and in the iconographic tradition (I,II), the editions of the extant Irish and the earliest surviving Latin texts of the Passion of Longinus and of a little-known short tract describing the healing of Longinus from Leabhar Breac (III), and the discussion of the later medieval Irish popular traditions (IV). Particular attention is given to the study of two intriguing peculiarities of the Irish tradition. Most early Irish Gospel books feature an interpolation of the episode of the spear-thrust in Matthew 27:49, directly preceding the death of Christ, implying its reading as the immediate cause of death. The image of Longinus as 'iugulator Christi' ('killer of Christ') appears to have been crucial for the development of the legend. Also, the blindness motif, which rarely features in other European popular traditions until the twelfth century, is attested as early as the eighth century in Ireland, which has led some scholars to suggest a potential Irish origin.
Comthóth Lóegairi co Cretim ocus a Aided: Eagrán maille le hanailís liteartha agus teanga
(University College Cork, 2016) O'Donoghue, Ken; Murray, Kevin; Irish Research Council
Is scrúdú ar théacs amháin, Comthóth Lóegairi co Cretim ocus a Aided (CLcC), a chaomhnaítear i lámhscríbhinn amháin, Lebor na hUidre (LU), atá sa tráchtas seo. Bíodh is gurb é LU an lámhscríbhinn Ghaelach is sine a chaomhnaíonn scéalta leanúnacha i nGaeilge, agus gur ábhar staidéir ar leith i ngort na Gaeilge agus na Ceiltise é dá réir, níor scrúdaíodh CLcC as féin mar earra litríochta fós, ná ní dhearnadh mionscrúdú ar an teanga ann ach chomh beag. Ceapadh gur mhithid an téacs a mheas ar na cúiseanna sin. Roinntear an tráchtas ina dhá chuid, mar atá: (a) cuid a haon, a chuireann síos ar chomhthéacs na lámhscríbhinne agus ar cheisteanna a bhaineann lena lucht scríofa, chomh maith le hanailís liteartha ar théamaí a luaitear sa téacs féin. Déantar ceist an rangaithe a phlé chomh maith, is é sin, conas is ceart rangú a dhéanamh ar CLcC; (b) cuid a dó, is eagrán agus aistriúchán den téacs atá inti, chomh maith le nótaí teanga a scrúdaíonn gnéithe suntasacha den teanga, agus gluais. An dá shórt anailíse a chuirtear chun cinn i rith an tráchtais, .i. an scrúdú liteartha agus an t-iniúchadh ar an teanga, déantar iad a shuíomh i gcomhthéacs LU trí chéile oiread agus is féidir. Féachann an cur chuige seo le taispeáint gur de dhlúth na lámhscríbhinne féin na téamaí (mar shampla creideamh, cumhacht, ríogacht) is bun le CLcC, agus gur sampla an-spéisiúil de thoisí teanga LU an téacs seo, óir léiríonn sé caomhnú ábhar ón tSean-Ghaeilge chomh maith le forbairtí teanga a bhaineann le ré na Meán-Ghaeilge. Sna nótaí teanga, leis, cuirtear samplaí as lámhscríbhinní comhaimseartha eile san áireamh, chomh maith le foinsí níos sine ná sin, le bonn a chur faoin áitiú a dhéantar ar aois na teanga in CLcC.
Caoilte sa Luath-Fhiannaíocht
(University College Cork, 2018) Ó Síocháin, Tadhg; Murray, Kevin; Carey, John
Sa tráchtas seo, déantar iniúchadh ar ról agus ar fheidhm Chaoilte sa luathFhiannaíocht – ó na samplaí is luaithe go dtí c. 1400. Tá mórfhócas ann ar an léiriú a dhéantar ar Chaoilte in Acallam na Senórach agus i nDuanaire Finn go háirithe, ach tagraítear chomh maith do shamplaí níos déanaí den Fhiannaíocht, de réir mar is gá, chun gnéithe ar leith a léiriú. Téitear amach ar ról Chaoilte mar phearsa thairseachúil, mar fhéinní, mar revenant, mar fhile, mar cheoltóir, mar chleasaí agus mar idirghabhalaí idir an traidisiún réamhChríostaí agus luachanna na sochaí Críostaí agus idir an saol daonna agus an saol osnádúrtha. Déantar roinnt de na tréithe agus de na cáilíochtaí a bhaineann le Caoilte a iniúchadh i bhfianaise litríocht an laochais sa traidisiún Gaelach agus sa litríocht chlasaiceach. Scrúdaítear ról Chaoilte mar sheachadóir seantraidisiúin agus mar urlabhbraí thar ceann saoil atá imithe i bhfianaise teoiricí a bhaineann le staidéar na cuimnhe mar atá léirithe ag Assman, Carruthers, Duby agus scoláirí eile. Déantar misteachas Chaoilte agus na Féinne a iniúchadh faoi sholas scríbhinní van Gennep, Turner, Lévi-Strauss, Lewis agus Eliade inter alia. De bhrí go mbaineann An Leabhar Laighneach le pointe i stair na hÉireann ina raibh athruithe cuimsitheacha ag tarlú maidir le cúrsaí sóisialta, polaitíochta, eaglasta agus liteartha, déantar an t-ábhar ann a bhaineann leis an bhFiannaíocht i gcoitinne agus le Caoilte go háirithe a iniúchadh agus déantar an léargas a fhaightear orthusan sna tréimhsí réamh- agus iar-Normannacha a mheas Cuirtear síos ar chuid den neamhsheasmhacht agus den pharadacsúlacht a bhaineann leis an léiriú a dhéantar ar Chaoilte i bhfoinsí éagsúla ón tréimhse atá faoi staidéar. Áitítear, áfach, go mbaineann seasmhacht agus comhleanúnachas nach beag leis na feidhmeanna agus na rólanna a bhíonn aige, ainneoin éagsúlacht na seánraí agus fhad na tréimhse atá i gceist.
Arson in medieval Ireland: an analysis of the sources (with particular focus on Bretha Forloisctheo, the medieval Irish law tract concerned with arson)
(University College Cork, 2019) Doolan, Riona Aisling; Murray, Kevin
This thesis examines the issue of arson in medieval Ireland. This topic appears in written medieval literary sources and in historical sources such as the annals and is compared here with the medieval Welsh material on arson. Furthermore, a detailed review of the archaeological evidence for burning during the medieval period in Ireland is included. The main focus of this thesis is on the later medieval legal commentaries on burning which pay considerable attention to the penalties owed when a fire breaks out. Five commentaries discuss arson and two commentaries in particular, those in Rawlinson B506 and TCD H.3.17 (Commentaries A and B respectively) are based on a no-longer extant law-tract Bretha Forloisctheo ‘Judgements on Arson’. • Commentary A Rawlinson B506: 24vb42-25rb26 CIH 102.25-103.24 • Commentary B TCD 1336: 447.1-449.34 CIH 1945.08-1947.21 • Commentary C TCD 1336: 531.19-532.20 CIH 2013.22-2014.02 • Commentary D TCD MS 1337: 464a8-465a21 CIH 1025.03-1026.06 • Commentary E TCD 1387: 28b2-29a46 CIH 2184.15-2186.11 All five commentaries are edited semi-diplomatically with a discussion of the manuscript contexts, transmission methods for legal commentaries and the relationship of the commentaries to each other. Commentaries A and B are also translated into English for this thesis. Furthermore, the evidence for the law-tract Bretha Forloisctheo and its relationship to the Senchas Már collection of law-tracts is considered in detail in this thesis as well. The commentaries focus on a rural agrarian society and the consequences of a fire occurring in a house, farm buildings such as barns, or industrial buildings such as kilns or mills. For example, the fine is six cows and full compensation if a house is burned deliberately. If a mill or kiln is burned, the fine is three cows and full compensation. The statuses of the victim and the perpetrator of the fire are a major concern in the commentaries, with the penalties for the act graded accordingly. The intention behind the blaze is also taken into account when fines are calculated. The penalties are highest for deliberate arson, they decrease when a fire occurs due to negligence. Occasionally, there are no fines at all when a fire is started by accident. Furthermore, how the perpetrator reacts to the fire once it breaks out is considered in this material. The triad drochdénam, nemdénam 7 malldénam ‘bad-action, inaction and slow-action’ features prominently in these sources. If any of these actions contribute to a blaze being exacerbated, then the penalties rise to that of deliberate arson (even if a fire starts by accident). By utilising these legal commentaries on arson and contextualising their contents with a variety of early sources, this thesis discusses the impact of arson on the everyday lives of the people who lived in medieval Ireland.

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