Old Irish and Early Christian Ireland: A Basic Bibliography
by Charles D. Wright, 1994-08-04
- Bibliographies:
- Comprehensive:
- R. I. Best, Bibliography of Irish Philology and of Printed Irish
Literature (Dublin, 1913).
- Idem, Bibliography of Irish Philology and Manuscript Literature:
Publications 1913-1941 (Dublin, 1942).
- Rolf Baumgarten, Bibliography of Irish Linguistics and Literature 1942-71
(Dublin, 1986).
- Risteárd de Hae, Clár Litridheacht na Nua-Ghaedhilge 1850-1936
[Catalogue of Modern Irish Literature] 3 vols. (Dublin).
- I: Na Leabhra [Books];
- II: Filidheacht i dTréimhseacháin [Poetry in Periodicals];
- III: Prósa [Prose]. Index of published prose and poetry; in Modern Irish.
- Wilfrid Bonser, An Anglo-Saxon and Celtic Bibliography (450-1087), 2
vols. (Berkeley, 1957). Mainly on history and archaeology.
- Serial:
- The Celtic Studies Association of North America, A Celtic Studies
Bibliography for 1983-1985 (Philadelphia, 1987).
- "A List of Books, Articles etc. concerning the Various Aspects of the
Celtic Languages, received at the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth,"
in Studia Celtica (1966-- ).
- Biblioteca Celtica: A Register of Publications Relating to Wales and the
Celtic Peoples and Languages (Aberystwyth, 1910-- ).
- T. W. Moody, ed., Irish Historiography, 1936-1970 (Dublin, 1971).
- Joseph Lee, ed., Irish Historiography, 1970-1979 (Cork, 1981).
Irish Historical Studies (1938ff).
- G. R. Elton, ed., The Royal Historical Society: Annual Bibliography of
British and Irish History (Hassocks, Sussex, and Atlantic Highlands, NJ,
1975-- ).
- "Irish Studies Theses" in Newsletter of the School of Celtic Studies
(Dublin, Institute for Advanced Studies).
- General:
- Rachel Bromwich, Medieval Celtic Literature: A Select Bibliography
(Toronto, 1974).
- Harvard University Library, Widener Library Shelflist no. 25: Celtic
Literatures (Cambridge, MA, 1970).
- Morfydd E. Owen, "A Celtic Bibliography," in Glanville Price, Ireland and
the Celtic Connection, The Princess Grace Irish Library Lectures 4
(Gerrards Cross, 1987).
- School of Celtic Studies Fiftieth Anniversary Report 1940-1990 (Dublin,
1990), pp. 97-138: "The State of the Art: Personal Essays on Aspects of
Celtic Studies."
- Catalogues of Irish Manuscripts in Major Libraries:
- Richard Hayes, ed., Manuscript Sources for the History of Irish
Civilization, 11 vols. (Boston, 1965). Includes references to microfilms
at the National Library of Ireland, most of which are also at Harvard.
- Standish Hayes O'Grady and Robin Flower, Catalogue of Irish
Manuscripts in the British Museum, 3 vols. (London, 1926-53). The second
vol., by Flower, is a rich source of information on medieval Irish
literature. The Index volume records incipits and subjects.
- Catalogue of Irish Manuscripts in the Royal Irish Academy, 28
fascicles and 2 index vols. (Dublin, 1926-70).
- N. Ní Shéaghdha, Catalogue of Irish Manuscripts in the National Library
of Ireland (Dublin, 1961--).
- Pádraig de Brún and Máire Herbert, Catalogue of Irish Manuscripts in
Cambridge Libraries (Cambridge, 1986).
- For other libraries, Pádraig Ó Fiannachta, Clár Lámhscríbhinní
Gaeilge, 2 vols. (Dublin, 1978-80).
- Ecclesiastical Literature:
- James F. Kenney, Sources for the Early History of Ireland: Ecclesiastical,
rev. ed. with addenda by Ludwig Bieler (New York, 1966). A monumental
descriptive inventory of texts down to the Anglo-Norman invasion. A second
volume on secular sources never appeared. Can be supplemented by the
following:
- Kathleen Hughes, Early Christian Ireland: Introduction to the Sources
(Ithaca, NY, 1972).
- Louis Gougaud, Modern Research with Special Reference to Early Irish
Ecclesiastical History (Dublin, 1929).
- Idem, Christianity in Celtic Lands, trans. Maud Joynt (London, 1932).
- John Ryan, Irish Monasticism: Origins and Early Development, rev. ed.
with new Introduction and bibliography (Ithaca, NY, 1972).
- Lisa M. Bitel, Isle of the Saints: Monastic Settlement and Christian
Community in Early Ireland (Ithaca, 1990).
- Harold Mytum, The Origins of Early Christian Ireland (London, 1992).
Focus on archeology, with extensive bibliography.
- Aubrey Gwynn, The Irish Church in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries, ed.
G. O'Brien (Dublin, 1992).
- H. Löwe, ed., Die Iren und Europa im früheren Mittelalter, 2 vols.
(Stuttgart, 1982).
- P. Ní Chatháin and M. Richter, eds., Irland und Europa: die Kirche im
Frühmittelalter (Stuttgart, 1984).
- P. Ní Chatháin and M. Richter, eds., Irland und die Christenheit:
Bibelstudien und Mission (Stuttgart, 1967).
- Martin McNamara, The Apocrypha in the Irish Church (Dublin, 1976).
Important addenda in reviews by D. Dumville, Journal of Theological
Studies, n.s. 27 (1976), 491-4; D. O Cróinín, Éigse 16 (1976), 348-56.
- F. E. Warren, The Liturgy and Ritual of the Celtic Church, 2nd. ed. with
introductions and bibliography by Jane Stevenson (Woodbridge, 1981), pp.
cv-cxxviii.
- Michael Lapidge and Richard Sharpe, A Bibliography of Celtic-Latin
Literature 400-1200 (Dublin, 1985).
- J. F. Kelly, "A Catalogue of Early Medieval Hiberno-Latin Biblical
Commentaries," Traditio 44 (1988), 537-71; 45 (1989), 393-434. Includes
the commentaries identified by Bernhard Bischoff.
- For influence in Anglo-Saxon England, C. Wright, "Hiberno-Latin Biblical
Commentaries, Florilegia, and Homily Collections," in Sources of
Anglo-Saxon Literary Culture: A Trial Version, ed. F. Biggs, et al.
(Binghamton, 1990), pp. 87-123.
- Charles Plummer, "A Tentative Catalogue of Irish Hagiography," in his
Miscellanea Hagiographica Hibernica, Subsidia Hagiographica 15 (Brussels,
1925), pp. 171-285. The major collections are Plummer's:
- Vitae Sanctorum Hiberniae, 2 vols. (Oxford).
- Bethada Naem nErenn: Lives of Irish Saints, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1922).
- Richard Sharpe, Medieval Irish Saints' Lives: An Introduction to the
Vitae Sanctorum Hiberniae (Oxford, 1991).
- Dorothy Ann Bray, A List of Motifs in the Lives of the Early Irish
Saints, Folklore Fellows Communications 252 (Helsinki,1992).
- See also the following volumes of collected essays by Variorum Reprints:
- Kathleen Hughes, Church and Society in Ireland, A.D. 400-1200, ed. D.
Dumville (London, 1987);
- Ludwig Bieler, Ireland and the Culture of Early Medieval Europe, ed.
R. Sharpe (London, 1987); Mario Esposito, Latin
- Learning in Mediaeval Ireland and Irish Books and Learning in Mediaeval
Europe, ed. M. Lapidge (London, 1988 and 1990, respectively)
- Fergus Kelly, A Guide to Early Irish Law (Dublin, 1988).
- Folklore:
- R. Th. Christiansen, Studies in Irish and Scandinavian Folktales
(Copenhagen, 1959).
- T. P. Cross, Motif-Index of Irish Literature, Indiana University
Publications, Folklore Series 7 (Bloomington, 1952).
- Seán Ó Súilleabháin, A Handbook of Irish Folklore (Dublin, 1952).
- Seán Ó Súilleabháin and R. Christiansen, The Types of the Irish
Folktale, Folklore Fellows Communications (Helsinki, 1967).
- Dáithi O hOgáin, Myth, Legend, & Romance: An Encyclopedia of the Irish
Folk Tradition (New York, 1991). Bibliography at pp. 429-35.
- Grammars:
- Holgar Pedersen, Vergleichende Grammatik der Keltischen Sprachen, 2 vols.
(Gottingen, 1909-13).
- Henry Lews and H. Pedersen, A Concise Comparative Celtic Grammar
(Gottingen, 1974). Abridged and up-dated version of Pedersen's
Vergleichende Grammatik.
- Kenneth Jackson, Language and History in Early Britain: A Chronological
Survey of the Brittonic Languages 1st to 12th c. A.D. (Edinburgh, 1953).
On Welsh, Cornish, and Breton, but includes comparative material on
primitive Irish.
- Rudolf Thurneysen, A Grammar of Old Irish, rev. and enlarged ed. with
supplement, trans. O. Bergin and D. A. Binchy (Dublin, 1946). The standard
advanced grammar of OI.
- John Strachan and O. Bergin, Old-Irish Paradigms and Selections from the
Old-Irish Glosses (Dublin, 1949).
- E. G. Quin, Old-Irish Workbook (Dublin, 1975).
R. Lehmann and W. P. Lehmann, An Introduction to Old Irish (New York, 1975).
- G. Dottin, Manuel d'irlandais moyen, 2 vols. (Paris, 1913). Dated, but the
only comprehensive grammar devoted specifically to Middle Irish. Vol. 2 is
a reader, with selections mainly from the Leabhar Breac.
- Strachan, John, "Contributions to the History of Middle Irish Declension,"
Transactions of the Philological Society, 1903-1906 (London, 1906), pp.
202-246.
- Kenneth Jackson, ed., Aislinge Meic Con Glinne (Dublin, 1990). The
grammatical appendix (pp. 77-140) is now the best thing available on Middle
Irish.
- McCone, Kim, The Early Irish Verb, Maynooth Monographs 1 (Maynooth, 1987).
- Readers:
- Julius Pokorny, A Historical Reader of Old Irish (Halle, 1923).
- N. K. Chadwick, An Early Irish Reader (Cambridge, 1927). Mac Datho's Pig.
- R. Thurneysen, Old Irish Reader, trans. D. A. Binchy and O. Bergin (Dublin,
1949).
- Dictionaries:
- Dictionary of the Irish Language: Compact Edition (Dublin, 1983).
Consolidates the fascicles of the Dictionary of the Irish Language and
Contributions to a Dictionary of the Irish Language.
For Modern Irish see:
- P. S. Dinneen, An Irish-English Dictionary, Irish Texts Society (Dublin,
1904).
- Neil MacAlpine and John Mackenzie, Gaelic-English and English Gaelic
Dictionary (Glasgow, 1975). Formerly MacAlpine's Pronouncing Gaelic
Dictionary.
- Niall O Dónaill, Foclóir Gaeilge-Béarla (Dublin, 1977).
- Irish Palaeography, Scribes, and Libraries:
- Eugene O'Curry, Lectures on the Manuscript Materials of Ancient Irish
History (Dublin, 1861).
- W. M. Lindsay, Early Irish Minuscule Script (Oxford, 1910).
- Ludwig Bieler, "The Irish Book of Hymns: A Palaeographical Study,"
Scriptorium 2 (1948), 177-94.
- Idem, "Insular Palaeography: Present State and Problems," Scriptorium 3
(1949), 267-94.
- F. J. Byrne, A Thousand Years of Irish Script (Oxford, 1979).
Timothy O'Neill, The Irish Hand (Mountrath, 1984).
- For a list of facsimiles of Irish manuscripts, see L. Boyle, Medieval Latin
Palaeography: A Bibliographical Introduction (Toronto, 1984), pp. 100-4.
- Charles Plummer, "On the Colophons and Marginalia of Irish Scribes,"
Proceedings of the British Academy 12 (1926), 11-44.
- Louis Gougaud, "Les Scribes monastiques d'Irlande au travail," Revue
d'histoire ecclésiastique 27 (1931), 293-306.
- Idem, "The Remnants of Ancient Irish Monastic Libraries," Féil-Sgríbhinn
Eóin Mhic Néill, ed. J. Ryan (Dublin, 1940), 319-44.
- Kathleen Hughes, "The Distribution of Irish Scriptoria and Centres of
Learning from 730 to 1111," in Studies in the Early British Church, ed. N.
K. Chadwick (Cambridge, 1958), 243-72.
- Bernhard Bischoff, "Irische Schreiber im Karolingerreich," in his
- Mittelalterliche Studien: Ausgewählte Aufsätze zur Schriftkunde und
Literaturgeschichte (Stuttgart, 1966-81) III, 39-54.
- Collections of Texts (starred items include translations):
- Whitley Stokes and John Strachan, Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus, 2 vols.
(London, 1903). The major collection of Old Irish texts. Vol. 1 includes
the Wurzburg and Milan glosses and other biblical glosses; vol. 2 includes
non-biblical glosses and miscellaneous verse and prose.
- *Standish Hayes O'Grady, Silva Gadelica (London, 1892).
- *Whitley Stokes and Ernst Windisch, Irische Texte, 4 vols. (Leipzig,
1880-1909).
- J. Fraser, et al., ed., Irish Texts, 5 vols. (London, 1931-4).
- O. J. Bergin, et al., ed. Anecdota from Irish Manuscripts, 5 vols. (Halle,
1907-13).
- Kuno Meyer, "Mitteilungen aus irischen Handschriften," series in
Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie 1-10.
- *Todd Lecture Series
- *Anecdota Oxoniensia, Mediaeval and Modern Series
Medieval and Modern Irish Series
- *Irish Texts Society: The Book of Leinster, ed. R. I. Best and M. A.
O'Brien (Dublin, ).
- *Gerard Murphy, Early Irish Lyrics: Eighth to Twelfth Century (Oxford,
1956).
- *O. Bergin, Irish Bardic Poetry (Dublin, 1972).
- Henry Bradshaw Society (liturgical texts)
- *Scriptores Latini Hiberniae: Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina, 108B-D:
Scriptores Hiberniae Minores
- Collections of Translations:
- Kenneth Jackson, A Celtic Miscellany (New York, 1971). Penguin pb.
- D. H. Greene, An Anthology of Irish Literature, 2 vols. (New York, 1954).
- James Carney, Medieval Irish Lyrics (Berkeley, 1967).
- R. Lehmann, Early Irish Verse (Austin, TX, 1982).
- D. Greene and F. O'Connor, A Golden Treasury of Irish Poetry, A.D. 600-1200
(London, 1967).
- T. P. Cross and C. Slover, Ancient Irish Tales, with rev. bibliography by
C. W. Dunn (Totowa, NJ, 1969).
- Jeffrey Gantz, Early Irish Myths and Sagas (New York, 1981). Penguin pb.
- D. G. Calder, et al., Sources and Analogues of Old English Poetry II: The
Major Germanic and Celtic Texts in Translation (Woodbridge, 1983).
- General Studies of Old Irish Literature and Mythololgy:
- Eugene O' Curry, On the Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish, 2 vols.
(Dublin, 1873).
- H. d'Arbois de Jubainville, The Irish Mythological Cycle and Celtic
Mythology, trans. with additional notes by R. I. Best (Dublin, 1903).
- R. Thurneyse, Die irischen Helden- und Königsage bis zum siebzehnten
Jahrhundert (Halle, 1921). The standard scholarly treatment.
- Eleanor Hull, A Textbook of Irish Literature.
- T. F. O'Rahilly, Early Irish History and Mythology (Dublin, 1946).
- Douglas Hyde, A Literary History of Ireland, new ed. revised by B. O Cuív
(London, 1967).
- Robin Flower, The Irish Tradition (Oxford, 1947).
- Myles Dillon, Early Irish Literature (Chicago, 1948).
- James Carney, Studies in Irish Literature and History (Dublin, 1955).
- Brian O Cuív, ed., Seven Centuries of Irish Learning 1000-1700 (Dublin,
1961).
- A. Rees and B. Rees, Celtic Heritage: Ancient Tradition in Ireland and
Wales (London, 1961).
- James Carney, ed., Early Irish Poetry (Cork, 1965).
- Josef Szövérffy, Irisches Erzählgut im Abendland (Berlin, 1957).
- P. L. Henry, The Early English and Celtic Lyric (London, 1966).
- Alan Bruford, Gaelic Folk-Tales and Mediaeval Romances (Dublin, 1969).
- Mac Cana, Proinsias, Celtic Mythology (London, 1970).
- Idem, The Learned Tales of Medieval Ireland (Dublin, 1980).
- Idem, Branwen Daughter of Llyr: A Study in the Irish Affinities and of the
Compilation of the Second Branch of the Mabinogi (Cardiff, 1958).
- Stephen Tranter and Hildegard Tristram, ed. Early Irish Literature: Media
and Communication, ScriptOralia 10 (Tubingen, 1989).
- Kim McCone, Pagan Past and Christian Present in Early Irish Literature
(Maynooth, 1990).
- J. E. Caerwyn Williams, The Irish Literary Tradition, trans. P. Ford
(Cardiff, 1992).
- Charles D. Wright, The Irish Tradition in Old English Literature
(Cambridge, 1993).
- Versification:
- Kuno Meyer, A Primer of Irish Metrics (Dublin, 1909).
- Gerard Murphy, Early Irish Metrics (Dublin, 1961).
- James Travis, Early Celtic Versecraft: Origins, Development, Diffusion
(Ithaca, 1973).
- Journals:
- Archiv für celtische Lexicographie 1-3 (Halle, 1898-1907)
- Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy (Dublin, 1836-- )
- Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie (Halle, 1896-- )
- Éiru (Dublin, 1904-- )
- Revue Celtique 1-55 (Paris, 1870-1934)
- Études celtiques (Paris, 1936-- )
- Celtica (Dublin, 1946-- )
- Studia Celtica (Cardiff, 1966-- )
- Éigse (Dublin, 1939-- )
- Éire/Ireland
- Lochlainn (abandoned after a few volumes).
- Journal of Celtic Studies
- Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland
- Béaloideas (Dublin, 1927-- ). Devoted to Irish folklore.
- Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies
- Proceedings of the Harvard Celtic Colloquium
- Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies
- Peritia
- Newsletter of the School of Celtic Studies
- For other journals see O hOgáin, Myth, Legend & Romance, pp. 436-7.
I obtained the above file from
http://www.ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu/ftp/pub/history/Europe/Medieval/bibliographies/oldirish.bib
and tidied up the accented characters. The original notes follow below.
CPD 1995-08-02
Please note that the appearance of this material on-line does not detract from
the author's rights to it. It may be copied and distributed freely, in whole or
part, provided full credit is given to the author. In any event, this material
should not be published in printed form without the express consent of the
author.
The following bibliography was compiled by Charles D. Wright
(cdwright@ux1.cso.uiuc.) and posted by him to the discussion list MEDTEXTL.
on 4 August 1994. It has been cross-posted extensively, and we have taken the
opportunity of giving it a permanent home at this site. Many thanks to Charles
for this useful resource.
Lynn Nelson, Department of History, University of Kansas,
lhnelson@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
26 November 1994