Stories from Gaelic Ireland

Book excerpt: This quirky, yet important book, breaks new ground in the study of Gaelic Ireland by exploiting the rich source material contained in the sixteenth-century Annals of Ulster, Annals of Connacht, the Annals of Loch Cé and the Four Masters. While attention has previously been paid to poetry in Irish as a source for the history of the 16th century, the richness of the prose sources have not been exploited by historians. The annals contain a series of short accounts of events arranged by year. The storytelling of the annalists provides the openings into the past that are the key to this book, which uses seven of their longer stories to examine, at micro level, aspects of Gaelic society that created them. The significance of each story is illuminated by reference to other contemporary evidence, including the genealogies and the poetry. The text is provided in both the original Irish with an English language translation, with extensive writings placing the passages in their historical time.