"Great was the darkness of that night and its horror, and demons would appear on that night always."
Oíche shamhna shona daoibh go léir! Happy Hallowe'en! To accompany you on any trick or treating or early morning/late night wakenings this weekend we bring you our spooky Samhain special! Dr Hannah Mac Auliffe, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Maynooth University, explains how the festival of Samhain appears in medieval Irish literature as a time for feasting and merriment, with the High King’s Feast of Tara taking place on Halloween in several medieval stories. And just as we gather together and tell stories of demons and ghouls each October 31st, so too did the people of medieval Ireland. We hear of everything from zombies, threefold deaths and beheadings to werewolves, witches and kidnappings by the fairy armies of the sídhe. Be careful out there!
Recommended reading:
Hannah Mac Auliffe, 'Great was the darkness': Spooky stories from medieval Ireland, RTÉ Brainstorm: https://www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2023/1023/1412430-ghost-stories-medieval-ireland-folklore-halloween-samhain/
Lára Ní Mhaoláin, 'Preserving Samhain - Halloween in the Schools’ Collection of Irish folklore': https://www.maynoothuniversity.ie/research/spotlight-research/preserving-samhain-halloween-schools-collection-irish-folklore
Elizabeth Boyle, 'How authors in medieval Ireland made Samhain a good read': https://blogafragments.wordpress.com/2017/10/31/how-authors-in-medieval-ireland-made-samhain-a-good-read/
Primary sources mentioned (thanks Hannah for the references!):
ECHTRA CORMAIC: https://celt.ucc.ie/published/T302000.html
Stokes, Whitley (ed. and tr.), ‘The Irish ordeals, Cormac's adventure in the Land of Promise, and the decision as to Cormac's sword’ in Windisch, Ernst, and Whitley Stokes (eds), Irische Texte mit Wörterbuch, vol. 3:1 (1891) pp 183-221.
TOCHMARC EMIRE: https://celt.ucc.ie/published/T301021.html
Meyer, Kuno (ed. and tr.), ‘The Wooing of Emer’, Archaeological Review 1 (1888), pp 68-75; 150-155; 231-235; 298-07.
ECHTRA NERAI: https://www.ucc.ie/en/media/academic/seanmeanghaeilge/cdi/texts/Meyer-Echtra-Nerai.pdf
Meyer, Kuno (ed. and tr.), 'Echtra Nerai (The Adventures of Nera)', Revue Celtique 10 (1889), pp 212-228.
MACGNÍMARTHA FIND: https://celt.ucc.ie/published/T303023/index.html
Meyer, Kuno (ed. and tr.), ‘Macgnimartha Find’, Ériu 1 (1901), pp 180-190.
TOGAIL BRUIDNE DÁ DERGA: https://celt.ucc.ie/published/T301017A/
Stokes, Whitley (ed. and tr.), ‘The Destruction of Da Derga's Hostel’, Revue Celtique 22 (1901), pp 9-61, 165-215, 282-329, 390-437.
METRICAL DINDSHENCHAS: https://celt.ucc.ie/published/T106500D/
Gwynn, Edward (ed. and tr.), The Metrical Dindshenchas, Volume 4; Second reprint (Dublin, 1991) (first published 1906) (reprinted 1941).
Regular episodes every two weeks (on a Friday)
Email: medievalirishhistory@gmail.com
Producer: Tiago Veloso Silva
Supported by Maynooth University, the Dept of Early Irish, the Dept of Music, the Dept of History, & Taighde Éireann/Research Ireland.
Views expressed are the speakers' own.
Logo design: Matheus de Paula Costa
Music by: Sascha Ende
This week Prof. Deborah Hayden, our Head here in the Dept. of Early Irish, Maynooth University, explains what it was like both to go the, or become a, doctor in medieval Ireland! Taking us through a chronological development from the early medico-legal texts through the surge in scientific writing in the later Middle Ages she explains everything from how to cure a broken heart and how much to pay for surgery to where medical knowledge came from and how much more we have to learn from the understudied corpus of Irish medical manuscripts.
Further resources can be found here:
https://leigheas.maynoothuniversity.ie/the-first-physicians-of-ireland/
https://www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2019/1114/1010637-what-was-it-like-to-go-to-the-doctor-in-medieval-ireland/
Regular episodes every two weeks (on a Friday)
Email: medievalirishhistory@gmail.com
Producer: Tiago Veloso Silva
Supported by Maynooth University, the Dept of Early Irish, the Dept of Music, the Dept of History, & Taighde Éireann/Research Ireland.
Views expressed are the speakers' own.
Logo design: Matheus de Paula Costa
Music: Lexin_Music
Welcome back for season three! Hope you missed us as much as we missed recording our chats on all things medieval Ireland! Today we have Dr Elizabeth Boyle back for the first episode of the new season (as is becoming tradition) to learn about poets and poetry. We discuss everything from Poet-President Michael D. Higgins, the power of satire, constrained poetical forms, and the high status of poets to the popularity of the blackbird in Irish poetry (!), Seámus Heaney, whether medieval Irish poetry rhymed, how to become a poet and much more!
Suggested reading:
– Elizabeth Boyle, Fierce Appetites (Dublin and London, 2022)
– Liam Breatnach, "Satire, praise and the Early Irish poet", Ériu 56, no. 1 (2006), 63-84
– Liam Breatnach, Uraicecht na Ríar: The Poetic Grades in Early Irish Law, Early Irish Law Series II (Dublin, 1987)
– Robin Chapman Stacey, Dark Speech: The Performance of Law in Early Ireland (Philadelphia, 2007), pp. 95–134
– https://www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2025/0401/1504619-irish-medieval-poet-conchobhar-ruadh-mac-con-midhe-satire-exile/
Regular episodes every two weeks (on a Friday)
Email: medievalirishhistory@gmail.com
Producer: Tiago Veloso Silva
Supported by Maynooth University, the Dept of Early Irish, the Dept of Music, the Dept of History, & Taighde Éireann/Research Ireland.
Views expressed are the speakers' own.
Logo design: Matheus de Paula Costa
Music: Lexin_Music
Welcome to the last episode of season two! Thank you everyone for their continued support. Today we chat to one of the foremost experts on the Penitentials, Dr Elaine Pereira Farrell, who explains how these prescriptive documents list various sins and the corresponding recommended penances (e.g. fasting, prayers, fines). We learn how the Penitential texts are valuable sources to the historian as they were used by priests engaged in pastoral work and as such can be reflective of societal behaviours, attitudes, and beliefs.
Further resources:
https://penitentials.com/
Elaine Pereira Farrell, 'Penance and Punishment in Early Medieval Ireland' Peritia (2021) 32, 57–78
Rob Meens, Penance in Medieval Europe, 600–1200 (Cambridge University Press, 2014).
Regular episodes every two weeks (on a Friday)
Email: medievalirishhistory@gmail.com
Producer: Tiago Veloso Silva
Supported by Maynooth University, especially the International Centre for Irish Cultural Heritage, the Dept of Early Irish, the Dept of Music, the Dept of History, & Taighde Éireann/Research Ireland.
Views expressed are the speakers' own.
Logo design: Matheus de Paula Costa
Music: Lexin_Music
We are back this week in the National Museum of Ireland, Archaeology, on Kildare Street, in Dublin City centre, which is open 7 days a week and free to the public. We are joined by Maeve Sikora, Keeper of Irish Antiquities, and Assistant Keeper Matt Seaver. In addition to chatting more about the Words on the Wave exhibition, Maeve and Matt tell us about their jobs preserving Irish material heritage and culture and many of the cool artefacts the public can view in the museum including the Ardagh Chalice, the Faddan More Psalter, the Springmount tablets, the Tara brooch and some of the precious items on display from medieval Clonard.
The Words on the Wave exhibition is running May 30th to Oct 24th. For more details see https://www.museum.ie/en-IE/Museums/Archaeology/Exhibitions/Words-on-the-Wave-Ireland-and-St-Gallen-in-Early-M
Exhibition Advisors: Dáibhí Ó Cróinín, Cornel Dora, Philipp Lenz, John Gillis, Bernard Meehan, Raghnall Ó Floinn, Pádraig Ó Macháin, Timothy O'Neill.
Lending Institutions: Stiftsbibliotek St. Gallen; L'abbaye de Saint Maurice d'Agaune; Cork Public Museum.
Lead Partners: Department of Arts, Media, Communications, Culture and Sport; Office of Public Works.
Supporting Partners: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade; The Embassy of Switzerland in Ireland; The Embassy of Ireland to Switzerland; The Houses of the Oireachtas, The Discovery Programme; The Inks and Skins Project, Department of Modern Irish, University of Cork; The Royal Irish Academy; The School of Genetics and Microbiology, Trinity College Dublin; The School of Archaeology, University College Dublin; National Monuments Service, Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage; Department of Archaeology, University College Cork; Transport Infrastructure Ireland; Limerick County Council; Archaeological Consultancy Services Unit; Archaeology Plan; Courtney Deery Archaeology; Icon Archaeology; Archaeology Management Solutions; Vikingeskibmuseet, Roskilde; The Hunt Museum, Limerick; Eureka Secondary School (Kells, Co. Meath); Flade Klosterschulhaus (St. Gallen); Gallen Community School (Ferbane, Co. Offaly); Coláiste Muire (Ballymote, Co. Sligo).
Expert Assistance: Edward Bourke, Daniel Bradley, Sadbh Carrick, Ian Doyle, James Eogan, Silvio Frigg, Fenella G. France, Anna Hoffman, Pádraig Ó Macháin, Pierre-Alain Mariaux, Ursula Mattenberger, Valeria Marriangeli, Griffin Murray, TImothy O'Neill, John Sheehan and Andrew Woods.
Replicas: Potted History; Laura Quinn Design; John Nicholl; Brendan O'Neill.
Regular episodes every two weeks (on a Friday)
Email: medievalirishhistory@gmail.com
Producer: Tiago Veloso Silva
Supported by Maynooth University, especially the International Centre for Irish Cultural Heritage, the Dept of Early Irish, the Dept of Music, the Dept of History, & Taighde Éireann/Research Ireland.
Views expressed are the speakers' own.
This week Matt Seaver, Assistant Keeper of Irish Antiquities and Dr Diarmuid Ó Riain, curatorial researcher, welcomed us in to the National Museum of Ireland, Kildare St. to see the unique new exhibition: Words on the Wave. This is an incredible display of precious manuscripts from the Abbey of St Gall, Switzerland — some returning to Ireland for the first time in 1000 years — alongside spectacular objects from the Irish world from which they emerged. Running May 30th to Oct 24th. For more details see https://www.museum.ie/en-IE/Museums/Archaeology/Exhibitions/Words-on-the-Wave-Ireland-and-St-Gallen-in-Early-M
Exhibition Advisors: Dáibhí Ó Cróinín, Cornel Dora, Philipp Lenz, John Gillis, Bernard Meehan, Raghnall Ó Floinn, Pádraig Ó Macháin, Timothy O'Neill.
Lending Institutions: Stiftsbibliotek St. Gallen; L'abbaye de Saint Maurice d'Agaune; Cork Public Museum.
Lead Partners: Department of Arts, Media, Communications, Culture and Sport; Office of Public Works.
Supporting Partners: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade; The Embassy of Switzerland in Ireland; The Embassy of Ireland to Switzerland; The Houses of the Oireachtas, The Discovery Programme; The Inks and Skins Project, Department of Modern Irish, University of Cork; The Royal Irish Academy; The School of Genetics and Microbiology, Trinity College Dublin; The School of Archaeology, University College Dublin; National Monuments Service, Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage; Department of Archaeology, University College Cork; Transport Infrastructure Ireland; Limerick County Council; Archaeological Consultancy Services Unit; Archaeology Plan; Courtney Deery Archaeology; Icon Archaeology; Archaeology Management Solutions; Vikingeskibmuseet, Roskilde; The Hunt Museum, Limerick; Eureka Secondary School (Kells, Co. Meath); Flade Klosterschulhaus (St. Gallen); Gallen Community School (Ferbane, Co. Offaly); Coláiste Muire (Ballymote, Co. Sligo).
Expert Assistance: Edward Bourke, Daniel Bradley, Sadbh Carrick, Ian Doyle, James Eogan, Silvio Frigg, Fenella G. France, Anna Hoffman, Pádraig Ó Macháin, Pierre-Alain Mariaux, Ursula Mattenberger, Valeria Marriangeli, Griffin Murray, TImothy O'Neill, John Sheehan and Andrew Woods.
Replicas: Potted History; Laura Quinn Design; John Nicholl; Brendan O'Neill.
Regular episodes every two weeks (on a Friday)
Email: medievalirishhistory@gmail.com
Producer: Tiago Veloso Silva
Supported by Maynooth University, especially the International Centre for Irish Cultural Heritage, the Dept of Early Irish, the Dept of Music, the Dept of History, & Taighde Éireann/Research Ireland.
Views expressed are the speakers' own.
In this episode, we chat about the incredible academic and public resource that is the Library in the Royal Irish Academy. Academy Librarian Barbara McCormack tells us all about the collection of medieval manuscripts including some of Ireland's oldest manuscripts the Cathach of Columba and the Stowe Missal. Please visit the library yourself or check out the collections: https://www.ria.ie/library/visiting-the-library/
and
https://www.isos.dias.ie/collection/ria.html
Barbara is responsible for the strategic direction of the Library and Archive, the information services provided by the Library, and the curation of the world’s largest collection of manuscripts in the Irish language, as well as numerous other manuscript and archival collections, books and collections in other formats.
Regular episodes every two weeks (on a Friday)
Email: medievalirishhistory@gmail.com
X (formerly Twitter): @EarlyIrishPod
Supported by the Dept of Early Irish, Dept of Music, Dept of History, Maynooth University, & Taighde Éireann (formerly Science Foundation Ireland/Irish Research Council).
Views expressed are the speakers' own.
Dr Victoria McAlister from Towson University, Maryland, on everything you ever wanted to know about castles! Featuring all the big hits, Maynooth Castle, Bunratty, Blarney, Trim, the Rock of Dunamase, Clonard castle, Ferrycarrig, Carrickfergus, Irish castles, Anglo-Norman castles, Tower houses, colonialism, we cover it all. Dr McAlister busts some myths and explains how new advances in technology can assist the archaeologist and historian in their understanding of settlement around castles and the importance of considering the things we cannot see.
Suggested reading:
-Victoria McAlister, The Irish Tower House: Society, Economy and Environment c. 1300-1650 (Manchester University Press, hardback 2019, paperback 2021)
-https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/great-castles-of-europe
-Tom McNeill, Castles in Ireland: feudal power in a Gaelic world (Routledge, 1997)
-Tadhg O'Keeffe, Ireland Encastellated, AD 950–1550; Insular castle-building in its European context (Four Courts Press, 2021)
Regular episodes every two weeks (on a Friday)
Email: medievalirishhistory@gmail.com
X (formerly Twitter): @EarlyIrishPod
Supported by the Dept of Early Irish, Dept of Music, Dept of History, 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 are delighted to talk to the always enlightening Dr Christian Schweizer about his Research Ireland funded research on Dicuil, an Irish scholar who was prominent in the Carolingian Court in Aachen in the early 9th century. Dicuil wrote many fascinating texts covering a variety of disciplines including geography, astronomy and computistics, some of which, Dr Schweizer explains were annual "gifts" owed to King/Emperor Louis the Pious in return for his patronage. We also hear about other famous Irish scholars on the continent and ponder whether there are many parallels between their experiences and academia today.
Suggested reading:
-Christian Schweizer, ‘Categorizing Dicuil’s De cursu solis lunaeque’ in Peritia: Journal of the Medieval Academy of Ireland, xxxiii (2022), pp 227-48. https://doi.org/10.1484/J.PERIT.5.131906
-Anthony Harvey, ‘"Battling Andrew" and the West-Brit Syndrome Twelve Hundred Years Ago’, Classics Ireland 9 (2002), 19-27.
- Anthony Harvey, How linguistics can help the historian (Dublin, 2021), 11-22.
-Sam Ottewill-Soulsby, ‘The Elephant’s Knee: Questioning Ancient Wisdom in the Ninth Century’, in The Historian’s Sketchpad, November 30, 2023.
- Tutrone, F. (2020). ‘Lucretius Franco-Hibernicus: Dicuil's Liber de astronomia and the Carolingian reception of De rerum natura’, Illinois Classical Studies 45.1, 224-52.
- Ross, H. E. and Knott, B. I. (2019), ‘Dicuil (9th century) on triangular and square numbers’, British Journal for the History of Mathematics, 34.2, 79-94.
- Dicuil, Liber de mensura orbis terrae, ed. & trans. J. J. Tierney [and Ludwig Bieler] (1967). Dublin: School of Celtic Studies.
Regular episodes every two weeks (on a Friday)
Email: medievalirishhistory@gmail.com
X (formerly Twitter): @EarlyIrishPod
Supported by the Dept of Early Irish, Dept of Music, Dept of History, 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
Apologies for the poor sound quality in this episode!
This week Dr Janel Fontaine (Treasure Trove Officer, National Museums Scotland) talks us through some of the evidence for slavery in medieval Ireland. From the accounts of St Patrick in the 5th century to Gerald of Wales in the 12th century she explains how slavery was built into the social and economic fabric of Irish society.
Suggested reading:
- Janel Fontaine, Slave Trading in Early Medieval Europe (Manchester, 2025)
- Fergus Kelly, Guide to Early Irish Law (Dublin, 1988)
- Caitlin Ellis, ‘Perceptions of the Slave Trade in Britain and Ireland: “Celtic” and “Viking” Stereotypes’, Quaestio Insularis 19 (2018), 127–57
- Paul Holm, “The slave trade of Dublin, ninth to twelfth centuries”, Peritia 5 (1986), 317–345
- David Wyatt, Slaves and Warriors in Medieval Britain and Ireland, 800-1200 (Brill, Leiden, 2009)
- Charlene Eska, “Women and slavery in the early Irish laws”, Studia Celtica Fennica 8 (2011), 29–39
-Alice Rio, Slavery After Rome, 500-1100 (Oxford, 2017)
Regular episodes every two weeks (on a Friday)
Email: medievalirishhistory@gmail.com
X (formerly Twitter): @EarlyIrishPod
Supported by the Dept of Early Irish, Dept of Music, Dept of History, 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
It's time for our annual discussion of the man responsible for our national holiday in Ireland, Fáilte Ireland's global greening campaign and J. D. Vance wearing shamrock socks in the White House! Dr Elizabeth Dawson (Carlow College) is the perfect expert guide through over 14 centuries of stories celebrating St Patrick. She explains how Patrick became our patron saint, how traditions around Patrick evolved, why the 3 day weekend actually goes the whole way back to the 8th century, and from where snakes, parades and green beer come.
For those looking for the historical individual Patrick, have a listen to our episode with the excellent Terry O'Hagan from last year: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1xYXTvNMKUbOwfG9Cf061N?si=-_3QBbkGQnOx9YofGTKXVQ
Suggested reading:
Dawson, Elizabeth, Lives and Afterlives: The Hiberno-Latin Patrician Tradition, 650–1100 Studia Traditionis Theologiae, 55 (Turnhout, 2023)
Dawson, Elizabeth, https://www.confessio.ie/more/article_dawson#
Wycherley, Niamh, 'Meet St Patrick's Spin Doctor,' https://www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2024/0314/1036430-meet-st-patricks-spin-doctor/
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
Due to popular demand our podcast producer Tiago de Oliveira Veloso Silva has finally come on to the other side of the mic as one of our expert guests! We chat ‘soft power’, definitions of patronage, Agnes Ní Máelsechlainn ‘An Caillech Mór’ (d.1196), St Mary’s Arrouaisian monastery, Clonard, & reflections on the study of medieval Irish history. Tiago is over half way through his PhD research in the Department of Early Irish, Maynooth University, under the supervision of Dr Wycherley, working on the Taighde Éireann/Research Ireland Pathway project ‘Power and patronage in medieval Ireland: Clonard from the sixth to twelfth centuries’.
Tiago’s research aims to understand how women exercised power and authority in medieval Ireland by operating socio-cultural and political networks of patronage. This investigation is framed around noblewomen and religious women of the 12th century due to its intense and transformative character, but it allows certain chronological flexibility in order to understand the development of the concept and exercise of female power. To fill this epistemological lacuna, he employs an interdisciplinary approach anchored in a wide array of sources such as the corpus of secular genealogies, the Banshenchas and annalistic evidence.
Suggested reading:
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
"I have no claim to anything here save through her". These are the reputed words of one of the most famous knights in English history, William Marshal, describing his wife Isabel, daughter of Aoife and Strongbow. In honour of St Valentine's Day Dr John Marshall (Lancaster University) gives us the full story of Isabel de Clare — a fascinating noblewoman, whose life, inheritance and influence crossed multiple (shifting) territorial boundaries. Dr Marshall offers complex and sometimes poignant insights, explaining to us how, being "born to an English father from the Welsh March and an Irish royal mother, Isabel's life crossed geographic and cultural divides, though neither of these were as rigid as we tend to think.”
Suggested reading:
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
As a follow up to our episode on the English Conquest with Dr Colin Veach (University of Hull) we examine the bias inherent in the contemporary sources, including the famous Laudabiliter papal bull, the works of Gerald of Wales (Giraldus Cambrensis/Gerald de Barri) , and the 'Song of Dermot and the Earl'. We also discuss how historians can best approach this complicated period of Irish history.
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 St Brigit's weekend! (For links to Brigit content see below). Instead of Brigit we were eager to release an episode we recorded just before Christmas with the brilliant Dr Colin Veach, from the University of Hull, on the English colonisation of Ireland, which may be known to some of you as the Anglo-Norman Invasion. Today’s episode mostly focusses on the English perspective of the conquest. Whether it was inevitable, how we should frame the events, English or Anglo-Norman etc. We talk Diarmaid Mac Murchada or in English, Dermot McMurrough and Strongbow, King Henry II and the bad King John, but we’ll cover Rory O’Connor and other aspects in more detail in future episodes. We’ve an extra super short bonus episode which we will release next week on the initial propaganda that was released justifying the English invasion and how historians should approach the sources today.
Suggested reading:
Colin Veach, From Kingdom to Colony: Framing the English Conquest of Ireland , The English Historical Review, 2024;, ceae210, https://doi.org/10.1093/ehr/ceae210
Brigit links:
Niamh on the Bitesize Irish Podcast https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om-vObx_1gg
Tiago's article on RTÉ Brainstorm: https://www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2025/0130/1493745-medieval-ireland-kildare-women-st-brigid-darlugdach-gnathnat-sebdann-muireann-and-coblaith-sarnat/
Podcast episode with Prof. Catherine McKenna last year:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/1GYSJHylMlTNuKUSSzLhN1?si=fcdf72608d9142b7
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, Niamh Wycherley interviews Mairéad Finnegan, a PhD researcher in Maynooth University, about dress, clothing and fashion in late medieval Ireland (12th to 16th centuries). Mairéad brilliantly paints a vivid picture of how a medieval Irish person would express their ethnic identity, status, gender or community through their clothes and provides a glimpse into the private lives of medieval Irish men and women. Mairéad talks sumptuary laws, tomb effigies and dodgy hairstyles and indulges all of Niamh's random musings on short shorts, long shoes and colourful clothing. We ask the big questions like who wore it best (Waterford vs Limerick edition) in the 14th century and how does one deal with blackberry stains? Mairéad is half way through her PhD research in the Department of Early Irish (supervisor Prof. Deborah Hayden) and the Department of History (supervisor Dr Michael Potterton).
Suggested reading:
Sparky Booker, 'Moustaches, Mantles, and Saffron Shirts: What Motivated Sumptuary Law in Medieval English Ireland?' Speculum 96/3 (July 2021): https://doras.dcu.ie/26481/1/Speculum%20booker%20mantles%20moustaches%20final.pdf 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 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
