Happy New Year! To soothe fragile minds after the Christmas break we are easing you in to 2025 with St Columbanus part 2 — a further, more relaxed, reflection, on the career and legacy of Irish monastic founder Columbanus with Dr Alexander O'Hara. Do listen to our previous episode from November 22nd first if you get the chance.

In this episode, we hear lots of Columbanus' own words, from his own writings. Dr O'Hara discusses how Columbanus became a dynastic holy man to the Merovingians, high politics, murder, marriage alliances, the appeal of Irish radical asceticism, the tension between temporal and spiritual power, the physical layout of Irish monastic sites, the legacy of St Gall (Sankt Gallen).

Suggested reading:

Sancti Columbani Opera, ed. G. S. M. Walker, (Scriptores Latini Hiberniae Vol. II) The Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, (Dublin, 1957 [repr. 1970])

Ian Wood, The Merovingian Kingdoms (450-751) (London, 1994)

Alexander O'Hara (ed.), Saint Columbanus: Selected Writings (Veritas, Dublin, 2015)

J.-Michel Reaux Colvin & Alexander O'Hara, "Réécriture and the cultus of Saint Gallus, ca. 680-850: A fidelissimis testibus indicata", Traditio 79 (2024)

Regular episodes every two weeks (on a Friday).

Email: medievalirishhistory@gmail.com

X (formerly Twitter): @EarlyIrishPod

Supported by the Dept of Early Irish, Maynooth University, & Taighde Éireann (formerly Science Foundation Ireland/Irish Research Council).

Views expressed are the speakers' own.

Production: Tiago de Oliveira Veloso Silva.

Logo design: Matheus de Paula Costa

Music: Lexin_Music

Happy Christmas everyone! In today's episode, Professor Liam Breatnach (Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies), one of Ireland's leading experts on the Old/Middle Irish language, medieval Irish law (so-called Brehon Law), poets and the Irish language, explains what the law tracts can tell us about medieval Irish society, the intellectual networks and frameworks that influenced and were influenced by the large corpus of legal material, and how the highly stratified Irish society understood itself in legal terms. We chat cats, what people ate in medieval Ireland, the Senchas Már, lost texts, polygamy, zombie concepts and much more!

Suggested reading: Breatnach, Liam, ‘On Old Irish Collective and Abstract Nouns, the Meaning of cétmuinter, and Marriage in Early Mediaeval Ireland’, Ériu 66 (2016).

‘The Early Irish Law Text Senchas Már and the Question of its Date’. E.C. Quiggin Memorial Lectures 13 (Cambridge 2011)

Breatnach, Liam, A Companion to the Corpus Iuris Hibernici, Early Irish Law Series 5 (Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies 2005)

Regular episodes every two weeks (on a Friday).

Email: medievalirishhistory@gmail.com

X (formerly Twitter): @EarlyIrishPod

Supported by the Dept of Early Irish, Maynooth University, & Taighde Éireann (formerly Science Foundation Ireland/Irish Research Council).

Views expressed are the speakers' own.

Production: Tiago de Oliveira Veloso Silva.

Logo design: Matheus de Paula Costa

Music: Lexin_Music

Today, Dr Sharon Greene tells us how archaeologists explore how people lived in the past, what they believed and so on through the material remains they left behind. This can sometimes confirm or deny what the written records tell us – but most often it adds another layer to our understanding medieval Ireland. We chat about disciplinary challenges, how scholars can work together, Killeen Cormac, ringforts, cattle, sheep, St Brigit, ogham stones, the 'remote' western islands and settlement cemeteries.

Suggested reading:

OʼSullivan, Aidan, Finbar McCormick, Thomas R. Kerr, and Lorcan Harney, Early medieval Ireland, AD 400–1100: the evidence from archaeological excavations (Dublin: Royal Irish Academy, 2014).

Sharon Greene, 'Killeen Cormac – the archaeology and history of a significant early Christian foundation', Journal of the County Kildare Archaeological Society, Volume 20 2012/2013

Fergus Kelly, Early Irish farming: a study based mainly on the law-texts of the 7th and 8th centuries AD, Early Irish Law Series, 4 (Dublin: School of Celtic Studies, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1997)

Regular episodes every two weeks (on a Friday).

Email: medievalirishhistory@gmail.com

X (formerly Twitter): @EarlyIrishPod

Supported by the Dept of Early Irish, Maynooth University, & Taighde Éireann (formerly Science Foundation Ireland/Irish Research Council).

Views expressed are the speakers' own.

Production: Tiago de Oliveira Veloso Silva.

Logo design: Matheus de Paula Costa

Music: Lexin_Music

Happy anniversary to St Columbanus, famous as a monastic founder, and a symbol of a united Europe, who is remembered as having died on Nov 23rd in the year 615! (Happy birthday also to Dr O'Hara's wife! More info in episode). Columbanus aficionado Dr Alexander O'Hara brings us through Columbanus' auspicious beginnings as a handsome aristocrat in Leinster, his superlative scholarly career in Bangor, his illustrious travels around Europe and the cosmopolitan mixed monastic communities he founded in Annegray, Luxeuil and Bobbio. Referring to Columbanus' monks as akin to the SAS, O'Hara answers the question was he 'zero craic' and explains his impressive literary legacy.

Suggested reading:

Alexander O'Hara, “A lacuna in Irish historiography: the Irish peregrini from Eoin MacNeill to The Cambridge history of Ireland and beyond,” Irish Historical Studies 47 (2023), 1-18

Alexander O'Hara (ed.), Columbanus and the Peoples of Post-Roman Europe (Oxford University Press, 2018)

O'Hara, Jonas of Bobbio and the Legacy of Columbanus: Sanctity and Community in the Seventh Century (Oxford University Press, 2018)

O'Hara (ed.), Saint Columbanus: Selected Writings (Veritas, Dublin, 2015)

Regular episodes every two weeks (on a Friday).

Email: medievalirishhistory@gmail.com

X (formerly Twitter): @EarlyIrishPod

Supported by the Dept of Early Irish, Maynooth University, & Taighde Éireann (formerly Science Foundation Ireland/Irish Research Council).

Views expressed are the speakers' own.

Production: Tiago de Oliveira Veloso Silva.

Logo design: Matheus de Paula Costa

Music: Lexin_Music

In this episode, we are joined by Dr Chantal Kobel (Department of Early Irish, Maynooth University) to chat all about medieval Irish manuscripts (literally documents written by hand) and the various specialists skills and tools needed to read these precious historical sources. From palaeography (the study of old handwriting and writing systems) to codicology (study of the actual books) we learn about how manuscripts were physically made (trigger warning, it gets a little gruesome!), what they feel like, why so few survive, where you can see them for yourselves (online or Royal Irish Academy!), whether some more could be discovered, and whether any were written by women. Some notable mentions: Faddan More Psalter, Rawlinson B502 (Book of Glendalough?), Book of Armagh, Aided Chonchobair ‘The violent death of Conchobar.

Suggested resources:

Irish Script on Screen (ISOS): www.isos.dias.ie Manuscripts with Irish Associations (MIra): http://www.mira.ie/

e-Codices: https://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/en

John Gillis, The Faddan More Psalter: The Discovery and Conservation of a Medieval Treasure (Dublin, 2021).

Richard Sharpe, ‘Books from Ireland, fifth to ninth centuries’, Peritia 21 (2010), 1–55.

Donnchadh Ó Corráin, ‘What happened Ireland’s medieval manuscripts?’, Peritia 22-23 (2011–2012), 191–223.

Charles Plummer, ‘On the colophons and marginalia of Irish scribes’, Proceedings of the British Academy 12 (1926), 11–44.

Chantal Kobel, “A critical edition of Aided Chonchobair ‘The violent death of Conchobar’: with translation, textual notes and bibliography”, PhD thesis, Trinity College Dublin, Department of Irish and Celtic Studies, 2015.

Regular episodes every two weeks (on a Friday).

Email: medievalirishhistory@gmail.com

X (formerly Twitter): @EarlyIrishPod

Supported by the Dept of Early Irish, Maynooth University, & Taighde Éireann (formerly Science Foundation Ireland/Irish Research Council).

Views expressed are the speakers' own.

Production: Tiago de Oliveira Veloso Silva.

Logo design: Matheus de Paula Costa

Music: Lexin_Music

This week we chat to Anthony Candon about one of the greatest men in Irish history — Muirchertach Ua Briain (c.1050–1119), king of Munster, arguably king of all Ireland, and great-grandson of Brian Bóru. Tony tells us all about Muirchertach's reputation as a great military leader, his influence on the Irish Church, his international status outside of Ireland, the astute marriage alliances he brokered for his daughters with famous Norwegian king Magnus Barelegs and Arnulf de Montgomery, brother of Robert de Bellême, earl of Shrewsbury. We also chat how appropriate a camel is as a diplomatic gift, the Rock of Cashel and decapitated head trophies in medieval Irish warfare.

You can find Anthony Candon's published articles on academia.edu

Suggested reading:

Anthony Candon, “Power, politics and polygamy: women and marriage in late pre-Norman Ireland”, in: Damian Bracken, and Dagmar Ó Riain-Raedel (eds), Ireland and Europe in the twelfth century: reform and renewal (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2006) 06–127

Anthony Candon, ‘Muirchertach Ua Briain, politics and naval activity in the Irish Sea, 1075 to 1119’, Gearóid Mac Niocaill and Patrick F. Wallace (ed.), Keimelia: studies in medieval archaeology and history in memory of Tom Delaney (1987), 397–415

Anthony Candon, ‘Barefaced effrontery: secular and ecclesiastical politics in early twelfth-century Ireland’, Seanchas Ard Mhacha, xiv, no. 2 (1991), 1–25

For the 12th century Church see Marie Therese Flanagan, The transformation of the Irish church in the twelfth century (Woodbridge, 2013).

For the Rock of Cashel listen to Dr Patrick Gleeson on the Amplify Archaeology Podcast https://open.spotify.com/episode/63Sv8kZNbP12NT4HoRAgUp?si=1dda663e986b4e53

Regular episodes every two weeks (on a Friday).

Email: medievalirishhistory@gmail.com

X (formerly Twitter): @EarlyIrishPod

Supported by the Dept of Early Irish, Maynooth University, & Taighde Éireann (formerly Science Foundation Ireland/Irish Research Council).

Views expressed are the speakers' own.

Production: Tiago de Oliveira Veloso Silva.

Logo design: Matheus de Paula Costa

Music: Lexin_Music

Welcome back to the second season of The Medieval Irish History Podcast!

We are very excited to be back with you all! Today, in our very first episode of the new season, we are back with Dr Elizabeth Boyle to talk little bit about Early Irish Literature. You have probably heard about some key figures of medieval Irish literature, such as Cú Chulainn and Queen Medb from Táin Bó Cúailnge, but how can we as historians (or interested readers) interpret these sagas? Are they myths that provide a window into Ireland's past or are they the result of a cleric's fertile imagination?

Suggested reading:

– For translations of a selection of Irish saga narratives see Jeffrey Gantz, Early Irish Myths and Sagas (Penguin, 1981) but please disregard the outdated introduction.

– Ann Dooley, Playing the Hero: Reading the Irish Saga Táin Bó Cúailnge (Toronto, 2006)

– Elizabeth Boyle, Fierce Appetites (Dublin and London, 2022)

– Elizabeth Boyle, 'Early Medieval Perspectives on Pre-Christian Traditions in the Celtic World' In: Prognostication in the Medieval World: A Handbook (Berlin, 2020).

– Gregory Toner, ‘Wise Women and Wanton Warriors in Early Irish Literature’ in Proceedings of the Harvard Celtic Colloquium, xxx (2010), pp 259–27

– Angela Bourke et al (eds), The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing Volume IV: Irish Women’s Writings and Traditions (Cork 2002)

– Thomas Owen Clancy, ‘Women poets in early medieval Ireland’, in C. E. Meek & M. K. Simms (eds), The Fragility of her Sex? Medieval Irish Women in their European Context (Dublin, 1996), pp. 43–72

Regular episodes every two weeks (on a Friday).

Email: medievalirishhistory@gmail.com

X (formerly Twitter): @EarlyIrishPod

Supported by the Dept of Early Irish, Maynooth University, & Taighde Éireann (formerly Science Foundation Ireland/Irish Research Council).

Views expressed are the speakers' own.

Production: Tiago de Oliveira Veloso Silva.

Logo design: Matheus de Paula Costa

Music: Lexin_Music

ICYMI! In order to celebrate the anniversary of Adomnán on the 23rd of September, we are re-uploading the episode discussing saint Adomnán, one of the successors of Columba and writer of the Vita Columbae, with Prof. Clancy (Professor of Celtic, University of Glasgow).

In this episode we focus on his primary monastic foundation, Iona, and his successor abbot Adomnán (d.704), famous in his own right as a saint, a stateman, a scholar, and a jurist. Prof. Clancy tells us about Adomnán's writings, including the Vita Columbae (The Life of Columba) and De Locis Sanctis (On the Holy Places), his diplomatic activities, his motivations and his methods. We also chat about the Loch Ness Monster, vikings, the Book of Kells and more.

Suggested reading/resources (see also part 1 ep. notes):

-Máire Herbert, Iona, Kells and Derry (1988)

-Thomas O'Loughlin, Adomnán at Birr, AD 697: essays in commemoration of the law of the innocents (2001)

- Jonathan M. Wooding, Rodney Aist, Thomas Owen Clancy, Thomas O'Loughlin (eds.), Adomnán of Iona: Theologian, lawmaker, peacemaker (Dublin, 2010).

- Thomas O'Loughlin, 'The library of Iona in the late seventh century: The evidence from Adomnán's 'De Locis Sanctis'', Ériu 45 (1994) 33–52

-Iona's Namescape project https://iona-placenames.glasgow.ac.uk/

-Adrián Maldonado on Columba's writing hut: https://theconversation.com/how-we-found-st-columbas-famous-writing-hut-stashed-in-a-cornish-garage-80778

Regular episodes every two weeks (on a Friday).

Email: medievalirishhistory@gmail.com

Twitter/X: @EarlyIrishPod

Supported by the Dept of Early Irish, Maynooth University, & Science Foundation Ireland/The Irish Research Council.

Views expressed are the speakers' own.

Production: Tiago de Oliveira Veloso Silva.

Logo design: Matheus de Paula Costa

Music: Lexin_Music