Kill the wrong dog in early medieval Ireland and it could cost you ten cows and a replacement hound. Let your own dog foul a neighbour's land and you might…
For over a thousand years, Ireland ran a legal system with no police force, no prisons, and no state courthouse, and it worked. Disputes were heard, judgements were handed down,…
Shrouded in the mists of early medieval Ireland, Ogham remains one of the most enigmatic writing systems of the ancient world. Its slender strokes and notches, cut along the edges…
Myles Dillon spent fifty years arguing that early Ireland and ancient India shared more than a distant ancestor — this is his story, and his case
What follows is a 10th-century poem describing events set in the seventh century. It records an imagined conversation between King Guaire (Guare) of Connacht and his brother Marvan (Marban), a…
Published in 1924, the book is a study of the Irish-language poets who kept a native learned culture alive across Cork, Kerry, and Limerick through the eighteenth century, long after the formal Bardic schools of medieval Ireland had been destroyed. Corkery called this world hidden for a precise reason.
Muirbretha, the "sea-judgements," is the main surviving Brehon law text on maritime affairs, and it survives only because a handful of scribes thought it worth copying fragments of it into…
In 1317, Irish chieftains led by Domhnall Ó Néill sent a remarkable plea to Pope John XXII, arguing centuries before the Enlightenment that Ireland had every right to rule itself.
Ask most people, even most Irish people, to name a famine, and they'll give you one answer: the Great Hunger of the 1840s (or An Gorta Mór; though a growing…
This article is for anyone curious to learn more about their family history and genealogy. It includes essential resources, records, and strategies for successfully tracing one's Irish ancestry. From vital…