Books On The Gael

Location: Ireland

If ye are looking for information on the Irish Gael, Gaelic Culture ye could do worse than read the reviews of the books about the Gael on our own Irish book site.

Rather than be too impressed by the five minute passions of pasters on the internut who by and large ye can bet your last dollar have never studued bar how to copy and paste text, let alone studied Irish history, simply go to the source and read the books of those many who have given of their lifes passion to study and write or at worst read the reviews yourself.

Books On The Gael, Gaelic Culture

Good examples

The hidden Ireland: A study of Gaelic Munster in the eighteenth century

A good read because it destroys the myth that Gaelic Ireland were wiped out in the 16th . 17 th century, and that the Irish were already anglicized (absolute ribbish, it was not until the potato failed in the mid 19th century, that the tongue started to as well) just because a a power base essentially was, the soil (the average Irish) was the same in much of Ireland. This book helps ye understand that Irish were alive and well and the use of the word Hidden is to show not from reality or fact but by propoganda and ignorance.

Celtic Ireland West of the River Shannon: A Look Back at the Rich Heritage and Dynastic Structure of the Gaelic Clans

Irish Books Reviews:

Summary: An incredibly fascinating read
Comment: Patrick Lavin's Celtic Ireland West of the River Shannon is an incredibly fascinating read... The book with the subtitle A Look Back at the Rich Heritage and Dynastic Structure of the Gaelic Clans, offers everything there is to know about western Ireland's ancient Celtic tribes... Celtic Ireland West of the River Shannon is a beautifully intricate book centring on the facts on which many a legend was born. As interesting as it is factually correct, this will get many a history-phobic turning the pages."

The reader accompanies the early Irish Celts on their cultural journey down the ages and into the province of Connacht, where the story focuses on the early tribal communities exploring the developing dynastic families, descendants of once heroic warrior societies. The earliest noted Celtic inhabitants of Connacht, collectively called Firbolg, were believed to have ruled much of the province until well into the third century, when they were toppled and driven into tributary status by the expansion and dominance of the Gaels from northern Spain. In Connacht, some thirty petty kingdoms came to figure prominently in Irish history and legend. Among them, the Three Tuaths Kinel Dofa (O Hanly country), Corca Eachlinn (MacBrennan country) and Tir-Briuin-na-Sionna (O Beirne country) are presented as microcosms of what Gaelic tribal life throughout the Middle Ages was like. This book centers on the rise to power of the Connacht dynasts, their constant warring among themselves, their decline brought about by endless conflict with their kinsmen and invading Normans, their final collapse following confiscation of their lands by the English in the seventeenth century, and the resurgence of Celtic culture and the triumphant return of the Irish Gaels as masters of their own destiny.

Tales of the Elders of Ireland: Acallam Na Senorach

Editorial Reviews:

"'Dear holy cleric,' they said, 'these old warriors tell you no more than a third of their stories, because their memories are faulty. Have these stories written down on poets' tablets in refined language, so that the hearing of them will provide entertainment for the lords and commons of later times.' The angels then left them."

Tales of the Elders of Ireland is the first complete translation of the late Middle Irish Acallam na Senorach, the largest literary text surviving from twelfth-century Ireland. It contains the earliest and most comprehensive collection of Fenian stories and poetry, intermingling the contemporary Christian world of Saint Patrick with his scribes, clerics, occasional angels and souls rescued from Hell, the earlier pagan world of the ancient, giant Fenians and Irish kings, and the parallel, timeless Otherworld, peopled by ever-young, shape-shifting fairies.

This readable and flowing new translation is based on existing manuscript sources and is richly annotated, complete with an Introduction discussing the place of the Acallam in Irish tradition and the impact of the Fenian or Ossianic tradition on English and European literature.

Irish Forums Message Discussion :: Books On The Gael

Books On The Gael