Kuno Meyer: The German Who Gave Ireland Back Its Voice
Kuno Meyer was born in Hamburg, taught German in Liverpool and died in Leipzig, yet few people did more to put early Irish literature back into Irish hands. Here is…
irish mythology
Did You Know About Isolde’s Tower? The Irish Princess Beneath Temple Bar
Thousands of people walk past Isolde's Tower every week without knowing it is there. It sits behind an iron gate on Exchange Street Lower, on the western edge of Temple…
Bark, Bite, and Brehon Law: Learn About The History of Dogs in Early Irish Society, Legend, and Law
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…
Brehons, Brahmins, and an Irish Scholar who made an Incredible Connection
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 Does Brehon Law Say About the Sea? Muirbretha—Sea Judgements
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…
How the Irish Got Their Language | Origins of Gaeilge and Ogham
Auraicept na n-Éces, or The Scholars' Primer, is one of the most important and fascinating surviving texts from medieval Ireland. It stands as the earliest known native Irish treatise on grammar, poetics, and the philosophy of language.
Trial by Truth: The Twelve Ordeals of Brehon Law and the Testament of Morann
When people imagine early Irish law, they usually picture the brithem — the brehon — weighing evidence and handing down a careful judgement based on precedent. That's true enough for…
The Silver Branch: Cormac Mac Airt and the Price of the Otherworld
There's a passage that turns up in a lot of anthologies of Irish myth, usually just a page or two, that starts with a strange young man walking up to the King of Tara carrying a branch of silver with three golden apples on it...
Ireland’s Oldest Rule for Kings: Tell the Truth, or Watch the Kingdom Die
Imagine a political idea so old and so serious that a king who told a lie could, in theory, cause the harvest to fail.
The Last Fili? Osborn Bergin: The Scholar Who Carried the Name of Legend
Osborn Joseph Bergin (1873–1950) was a towering figure in Celtic studies. Read on to learn more about this veritable master of the Irish language, in all its historical forms, a brilliant philologist, an exacting editor of manuscripts, and a dedicated teacher who helped shape the next generation of scholars, including Myles Dillon.
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