Eric Patterson

This thesis will demonstrate that the mixed pagan and Christian content of LU, as examined through two selected exemplar tales, provides evidence of the unique merger of politics and religion in the localized setting of late eleventh century Clonmacnoise. Further, and more specifically, we will see that the mBocht family, influenced by its participation in the Céli Dé movement and seeking to protect the societal standing and holdings of themselves and their monastery, used portions of these tales to send subtle, and sometimes not so subtle, messages to the Irish Church, to chieftains and kings across Ireland, and specifically to the nobles of Munster.

This paper has as its terminal focus two Irishmen of the late 19th and early 20th centuries; namely, Standish O’Grady and Patrick Pearse.  Standish O’Grady, an Anglo-Irish Unionist, reintroduced and popularized the pre-Christian myths of the island.  Patrick Pearse built upon the foundation laid by O’Grady via his use of the Cuchulainn myths as both pedagogy and revolutionary ideology.  In the process of examining how O’Grady popularized, and the how Pearse politicized, Irish mythology, we will compare specific examples from their writings to the original transcriptions in order to demonstrate the intent of their editorial efforts.

The definition of gessa as reflected in scholarly works has, as would be expected, clearly evolved over time.  With the refinement of academic methodologies, our understanding of both the literary and social role and meaning of gessa have naturally become more complex, deep, and rich.  Whereas initial definitions merely captured the basic notion, scope, and impact of this multifaceted meme, later scholars explored the societal context and attempted to infer some insights as to what gessa might be telling us about roles and expectations.  This paper will follow this evolution and will explore the most recent concept of gessa in depth, and will propose a slight further development of the social meaning of gessa.  However, it is also observed that the actual relative scarcity of references to gessa, tabus, injunctions, etc., in the archival texts stands in contrast to what might be supposed were one to only rely upon the broad references and characterizations of leading scholars on the topic.  Thus, I conducted a close reading of the scores of narratives of the Ulster Cycle in order to establish a catalog of any incident which might be interpreted to be a geis, essentially establishing, by way of description and characterization, an actual taxonomy which can be analyzed to realize some interesting conclusions.

Edgar Slotkin, Professor Emeritus in the English Department at the University of Cincinnati, published his article on “Fled Bricrenn,” or “The Feast of Bricriu” (hereafter, FB), in 1978 not long after completing his PhD at Harvard.  His many subsequent published articles and books focused upon Irish manuscripts and mythology, and most regularly and especially upon the structure of various texts.  On the surface, this 1978 article on various interpolations of Lebor na hUidre (hereafter, LU) was a narrowly focused and somewhat dry palaeological accounting of various recensions of this early twelfth century Irish manuscript, specifically examining particular story of FB.  On another level, though, and even though perhaps never directly addressed nor maybe even intended by the author, this article was at least in part, also, the story of two men, Mael Muire (M) and the anonymous H, who took markedly different approaches regarding the content of FB.

Dr. Nina Witoszek, of Oslo University, and the late Dr. Patrick Sheeran were colleagues at National University Ireland, Galway, when they published Myths of Irishness:  The Formorian Connection, in the Irish University Review in 1990.  Combining the former’s background in comparative literature and the latter’s broad interest in literature, film, and the classics, these two authors utilize the Cath Maige Tuired (The Second Battle of Maige Tuired) to explore an oppositional sense of Irish identity as portrayed within myth.  Specifically, in their analysis of this story from the earliest Mythological Cycle of pre-Christian Irish literature, the authors demonstrate that the early Irish, just as other classical cultures, sought to define themselves and their culture in a positive and heroic manner by way of deliberate contrast with a barbaric ‘other.’  As the authors point out, the irony of this all-too-human approach to identity is that this exact technique would be employed against the Irish by the Anglo-Normans beginning in the 13th century and extending through subsequent British characterizations as late as the 19th century.

Robert Alexander Stewart Macalister was an Irish archeologist who entered the field of biblical archeology at the turn of the twentieth century.  By 1909, he returned to the field of his first true passion as he became the Professor of Celtic archeology at University College Dublin, a position which he held until his retirement in 1943.  He was elected to the Royal Irish Academy in 1910 and served as its president from 1926 to 1931.  In 1927, he published “Oidhe Chloinne Tuireann,” an analysis of the Mythological Cycle tale of “The Quest of the Sons of Turenn.”  His framework of analysis of this tale examines the role and function of the folk narrator, whose skill, he says, “lies in the skill with which he stitches his borrowed incidents together.”  From this perspective, his dissection of the tale along largely sociological lines ultimately offers the reader some interesting insights as to what it meant to be human in the tales of pre-historical pagan Ireland.

If Joyce, in Dubliners, is offering a moral history of his countrymen, then he is also implicitly offering his perspective regarding who they are as a nation, for identity can hardly be separated from collective morality.  However, Joyce, along with his literary and political contemporaries, did not exist in either a vacuum or a stasis and one can only rightly view Joyce’s unique perspective in the context of his times.  The first three decades of Joyce’s life were witness to an intense revival of nationalism, to various movements towards political autonomy, and to efforts by leading men and women of Irish society to redefine a sense of national identity. 
Scholars of both Joyce and Irish mythology have previously described the perceived linkage between those two fields of study.  However, those who have written about this intersection do not seem to have attempted to discern what Joyce is saying, by way of these created linkages, about the Irish at large and about Dubliners in particular.  While many of Joyce’s contemporaries were resurrecting an awareness of bold and glorious mythological heroes in support of their political vision for the early 20th century, Joyce very deliberately incorporated mythological themes of mainly darkness and death into his texts.  This paper will explore exactly that point; that is, not just how Joyce incorporated elements of mythology into Dubliners, and especially into ‘The Dead,’ and how he very carefully reinforced his recurring themes of paralysis, frustration, and darkness, but how in doing so he offered his own vision for what he saw as a realistic Irish national identity.

Thomas Davis made an impact upon the stage of Irish nationalism out of all proportion to the amount of time actually spent on that stage.  While his work, especially his efforts as one of the part owners, editors, and writers for The Nation, of necessity moved across a broad range of topics, this paper will examine Davis’ observations on the appropriate role of Irish music in service of the nationalist cause and the changes which would need, in his opinion, to occur for contemporary music to fulfill that role.  Specifically, we will examine his essay titled “The Songs of Ireland,” written in either 1844 or 1845 and published posthumously in a collection of essays in 1846.

In her article published in 1932, Alice Buchanan convincingly demonstrated that the tale of Gawain and the Green Knight (hereafter, GGK) in particular, and, more broadly, certain recurring themes in a wide range of Arthurian tales, have not only undeniable roots in a range of pagan Irish mythology but that specific themes, characters, and physical settings were very apparently lifted directly from various interpolations of Irish tales in order to create an updated and merged story for a contemporary audience.  Drawing upon the careful contrast and comparison of various points from a multitude of sources, she not only supported her thesis but also, even if unintentionally, demonstrated the enduring human trait of recognizing the social value of a good story and subsequently adapting and revising the same for continued use.

On 24 April, 1916, more than 1,000 rebels of the Irish Volunteers and associated organizations under the leadership of Patrick Pearse, James Connolly, Eamon de Valera, and others declared an independent Irish Republic from the steps of the General Post Office in Dublin.  At that same moment, tens of thousands of their countrymen were in the British Army, participating in the Great War on the mainland, and many thousands of Irishmen had already been killed in Gallipoli, Salonika, Belgium, France, and elsewhere in service to the crown.  This paradox creates the opening for many interesting questions. How did those Irish troops and the Irish public, especially those connected to serving Irish soldiers, react to the Easter Uprising?  Most importantly, for the purposes of this paper, what was the collective reaction to Irish service in the Great War immediately following the armistice, and what was the continued impact upon public opinion, political action, and internecine strife throughout the following decades?  Using the historical novel “A Long Long Way” as a structural framework for analysis, this paper will address these unspoken realities by comparing the modern memory as reflected in this historical novel to the historical reality as recorded by witnesses and scholars.

The Irish fortified town of Drogheda, inhabited by the Catholic Irish but defended mainly by Catholic Confederate forces, was attacked, overrun, and plundered by Oliver Cromwell and his New Model Army on 11 September 1649.  The subsequent massacre of thousands of the defenders and inhabitants ensured, probably more so than any other single incident, Cromwell’s long-standing place of notoriety and hatred in the Irish memory.
But to what degree was it intentional and deliberate on the part of Cromwell that this excess of violence occurred in that place, and how did it come to be that this precise impression of Cromwell as brutal villain was transmitted, recorded, and preserved?  Morrill and O’Siochru, with their respective chapters in "Age of Atrocity," each attempt to address an element of this two-part question.  This comparative review and analysis will summarize the main purpose, the pertinent issues, and the conclusion of each of these two authors, and will then attempt to merge their two arguments into a combined perspective of the actual role played by Cromwell in making possible, or probable, this infamous massacre.

Brother Sean Mulholland, OFM, is the Director of Franciscan Studies at the Franciscan International Study Center.  He has written extensively on issues of biblical and Franciscan history, to include especially medieval history, theology, and philosophy.  His article on St. Patrick, published in 1992, sought to demonstrate that St. Patrick’s Confessions demonstrated a spirit of humility that was atypical and unprecedented among his contemporaries, and that remains in contrast to his modern image as a national iconoclastic figure as a religious authority.  In making this point, the author was apparently also making an appeal to the modern reader that this is, perhaps, exactly the revised notion of St. Patrick and Christian spirituality which would better serve contemporary believers.