Dec 24, 2009

Táin Bó Cúailnge (The Cattle Raid of Cooley) | Historical Context

The Reinvention of Early Irish History
The Táin Bó Cúailnge floats within a period of over a thousand years. At one end is the generally assumed date of the essential action and characters of the first century A.D. At the other is the date of the earliest manuscript written in Clonmacnoise on the Shannon River in the first quarter of the twelfth century. Between these two dates is the great watershed of Irish history: the introduction of Christianity.

Christianity and Roman culture, because of the proximity of the Roman empire in Britain, had...