The Irish - The Lost Tribe?

THE IRISH - THE LOST TRIBE?

By PEADAR LAIGHLÉIS

Vos autem genus electum, regale sacerdotium, gens sancta, populus acquisitionis - 1 St Peter, 2:9

A combination of material wealth and religious poverty is invariably followed by on of those immense 

catastrophes, which write themselves forever on the memory of man.  - Donoso Cortez 

MY FAVOURITE NOVEL in Irish is Monsignor Breandán Ó Doibhlin's Néal Maidine agus Tine Oíche.*  The title "Morning Cloud and Night Fire"is based on Exodus 40:36.  In fact the novel closely follows the delivery of the enslaved Hebrews from Egypt andd their subsequent journey town the promised land.  But the book is written about the Irish, and it is made difficult for the average Irish reader by his frequent references to an older form of the Irish tongue.

Mgr Ó  Doibhlin was not the first.  When I read the book for the second time a number of years ago, I wondered how much the author knew about the fascination of the early Irish monks with ancient Israel and also how shocked those monks would be with modern scholarly attitudes.

Biblical influence crucial

The literature of early mediaeval Ireland has to date been analysed in a strictly Aryan construct.  Parallels are forever sought within the overall Indo-European (indo-germanisch) context.  This can be fruitful. For, example, Cormac mac Airt is suckled by a wolf in infancy.  We could safely assume this to be a direct borrowing from the story of Romulus and Remus, were it not for the fact that a similar tale is told of Cyrus the Persian and the same theme emerges in Greek and Germanic lore.  Though valuable, the Indo-European view is not the last word on the matter.

The early Irish monks had little interest in India or Persia.  Their only interest in Germany was to convert the place.  In general, their only interest in an alleged Caucasian heritage was a belief that were are all descended from Noah's son Japheth.  The early Irish monks were more interested in Israel than in India.

Most of the writings now seen as mythological can be read as a retelling of a distinctly Irish folklore, subject to biblical influence.  So the puny Lug Lám Fata slays Balor of the evil eye with a sling shot.

But the monastic scribes went a lot further than that.  Lebor Gabála (The Book of Invasions) describes the primaeval history of Ireland.  It shows the influence of St Isidore of Seville and St Augustine in its view of history.  But it is interesting to see the lengths to which the monks went to parallel the Irish experience with that of the Hebrews.  In ways quite reminiscent of the Boers in South Africa or the Mormons, the first Irish Christians appear to have latched on to the conviction that they were a unique people, to whom God had allotted a special destiny.

Egyptian link

The common ancestor of the Gael was a Scythian.  (Here - and only here - would mediaeval and modern scholar find consensus.)  The lawyer and linguist, Fénius Farsaid, finds his way to Egypt where he founds a school of law.  His son married the Pharaoh's duaghter, that the father names  the language he invents after her son, Góedel, so we have Gaelic.  It is strongly hinted that young Góedel had Moses for a foster brother and Fénius taught both of them law.

Anyway, the time comes when it is now longer politic for Fénius and his kin to remain in Egypt, so they embark on a journey which brings them through the North African desert over 40 years and than through Spain, before they come to rest in Ireland.  Of course, they have to displace the peoples who were there before them, which they have no problem in doing.

 Place of natural law

A nice story, but the monks had to back it up.  They appealed to St Paul, who in Romans 2:14-15, implies a Natural Law written into creation by God.  The Irish were quite diligent in there observance of natural law (recht aicnid), according to the scribes.  Natural law was seen as a very important judicial concept; aand one presumes it remained so until Chief Justice Hamilton enlightened us on the the topic in the judgement on the constitutionality of the Abortion Information Act a few years ago.  Wherever they could point out a coincidence with the Law of Moses (recht litre - written law, they did; the most striking example being in relation to heiresses.

In the fullness of time, the Irish received the Law of Moses and with it, the Prophets and the New Testament.  This would naturally single St Patrick out as somewhat special.  The monks depicted him as a Moses-Elias figure.  Whereas the St Patrick of the Confessio and the Epistola is a simple and zealous missionary (methinks he doth protest too much - both writings are a lot more sophisticated than they appear to the naked eye), the various biographers of the saint give us the picture of either of the greatest figures of the Old Testament.

 Not merely hagiographical

Again and again, incidents are related which are similar to the lives of Moses and Elias.  In his various confrontations with the druids, we see retellings of the stand-off between Moses and Pharoah's magicians or between Elias and the priests of Baal.

It is all too simple to dismiss the Lives of St Patrick in the light of his own literary legacy.  Too simple, and based on an uncritical reading of both.  It should be remembered that St Patrick must have been a very impressive figure to silence the whole court of the High King and pave the way for the Christianisation of the entire country.

One of the Lives contains a very frank details: though the saint makes a great impression of King Lóegaire Ua Néill, the king remains a heathen.  This would hardly appear in a text which was merely hagiographical.

As Moses and Elias (foreshadowing Our Lord) fast 40 days and nights, so does St Patrick.  Finally, as the 12 Apostles are given the authority to judge the 12 Tribes of Israel, (St Matthew 19:28), Muirchú's Life assigns the same task to St Patrick, as he had been an apostle to us.  This is as close as the monks came to claiming status as a lost tribe.

 Judgement for sins

One could go into great detail about other efforts to associate Early Ireland with the peoples of the Old and New Testament, whether in lawa or customs, in origins ( though Japheth was the father of the Europeans, most Irish genealogies were traced through Shem), or personal contact.  (At least one Irish jurist went the wrong way on leaving Egypt and wandered with the Israelites for 40 years, receiving the Law from Moses.  And three Irish nobles were said to have become Christian before St Patrick came - Conchobar mac Nessa and Cormac mac Airt are the best known.)

The matter did not rest there.  At a much later time, during Plantations and Penal Laws, Irish writers and scholars returned to the same theme.  This time the literati were largely in exile on the continent, especially in Louvain.  The Elizabethan and Cromwellian terrors were fresh memories and it seemed one anti-Catholic pogrom followed another.  The writers went back to the Old Testament view of the Babylonian captivity and the conquest of the Promised Land by the Gentiles.  It was the judgement of God on Ireland for the sins of the Irish.

 Slavery and idols

Mgr Ó Doibhlin returns to the same theme this century.  Behind all the allusion to Exodus and Lebor Gabála, despite how archaic and remote all the characters and themes appear, one cannot help but believe he is referring to our own day.  Slavery and idols, though they come in different shapes and sizes, are still present; and little is so destructive as the slavery or seductive comforts, especially after enduring the more obvious slavery for so long.

Ireland has changed a lot since the 1960s, and the delusion of the Celtic Tiger within a new European superstate suggests that our present affluence may be a new form of enslavement.  If I draw my own parallel with the Old Testament in 1 Macchabees 1:11-16, we see the description of the apostasy of the Jews.

It is a depressing portrait of a race who throw off their distinctive beliefs and customs, given them by the true God, for the peace and prosperity of a pagan empire: an apostasy before the coming of Christ, which prefigures the apostasy before His Second Coming: Quo vadis, Hibernia?

There are many similarities between the Irish and the Jews, and the comparison is a lot more instructive than ideas about common links between Ireland and India (links which do exist but are buried in the mists of prehistory).  Unfortunately this resemblance is not a matter for self-congratulation; it is, rather, a cross to be carried.

Nations, like individuals, have their own vocations, their own specific missions.  Has Ireland, insula sanctorum et scholarum, made good use of the graces God has conferred on her?  And does she continue to do so in our own day?

* Breandán Ó Doibhlin, Néal Maidine agus Tine Oíche, Foilseacháin Náisiúnta Teoranta, 1964

 The Brandsma Review, Issue 39, October-November 1998 

A Personal Reflection on Translating the Mass

A PERSONAL REFLECTION ON TRANSLATING THE MASS

by PEADAR LAIGHLÉIS

IN 1981, I went to Coláiste na bhFiann for the first time.  This was not in the Gaeltacht, but rather was an Irish-medium summer boarding school operated along modified military regulations.   Though it was not a Catholic institution, Catholic students had to attend daily Mass and rosary in Irish and to know all the Mass responses and mysteries of the rosary in Irish.

I quickly realised that there were differences between the Mass in Irish and in English.  As a 12 year old, I reasoned English was a major international language and Irish was a minority language even on its own turf, so the universal Church would ensure that English was correct, but Irish would probably fall under the radar.

One factor did strike me.  I read Scripture as a schoolboy.  Among my favourite Gospel stories was the healing of the centurion's servant (Matt. 8, 5-13).  I never made any connexion between this and "Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and I shall be healed", but the correct Irish, A Thiarna, ní fiú mé go dtiocfá faoi mo dhíon, ach abairse an focal agus leigheasfar m'anam, automatically brought this into my mind.  Even non-goidelophones will probably identify m'anam with anima mea.

I learned Latin in school, but it was a very long time before I attended any Latin liturgy.  However, after school (1986-88), I spent two years in an Augustinian community where a Polish novice announced that the English rendering of the Mass was a poor translation.  Our confreres didn't see the issue, but I took a vinyl recording of a Mozart Mass which gave parallel texts of the ordinary form in Latin and several other languages in its sleeve cover.  I looked at English and French and could see that the French was closer to the Latin than the English and, as far as I could see, this was the case with Spanish and Italian.  My memory of Mass in Irish confirmed that I was mistaken as to which language gave a better translation.
Closer to the Latin
Two years later (1989), I went to Germany for the first time and began to learn German.  I lived in the cathedral parish in Stuttgart and attended Mass there several times a week (work permitting).  I saw that the German Mass was also much closer to the Latin proto-Mass than the English.  I returned to studies in Maynooth where I made the acquaintance of a retired New York businessman, originally from Clones, who had studied for the Pallottine society in Thurles 50 years before.  He frequently made the point that the English translation of the Mass was very poor. This man, now deceased, made many friends among the student body and was very generous towards the college's deacons.  I don't believe I was the only one who heard this argument.

From 1990 to 1991, I was publicity office of Maynooth Students' Uinon and my principal duty was the production of a student journal.  I followed the principle that this magazine was for all Maynooth students rather than just a few vocal, radicalised and promiscuous lay students in the Arts Faculty.  This meant having a religious affairs column.  The English translation of the Mass was one of the first targets in a moderately conservative opinion piece.  This can be seen in St Pat's Chat, Volume 3, No.1 in the John Paul II Library in Maynooth.  This was over 20 years before the emergence of the new English translation.

Over the next decade I became acquainted with the late Proinsias Ó Fionnagáin SJ, a Monaghan-born linguist and historian.  An tAthair Ó Fionnagáin told us that he studied the draft of the English Mass following its publication in 1971 and then wrote to his provincial to tell him that he was prepared to say Mass according to the 1969 Missal in Latin, in French and in Irish, but he was not prepared to do so in English as the translation departed too far from the Latin original.
Ambiguous phrase
At the same time, I did some work on assisting the translation of the Divine Liturgy of St John Chrysostom into Irish under the direction of the late Archimandrite Serge Keleher (for reference rather than liturgical use, though the Irish has been used from time to time).  Mgr Keleher insisted that the translation be as literal as possible in regard to the Greek and Old Church Slavonic typical editions.  Translations into English, French, German and Italian were looked at, but none was followed as a model.  The archimandrite's view of the English version of the Roman Mass was that it was a model of how not to do things.

Versions of the Mass in other languages are often far form perfect, but English has been particularly egregious in its departure from Latin.  This has been accentuated by the use of English rather than Latin as a template for new translations in mission territory.  But other versions have their problems.  For example, German renders pro multis as für alle, which is the same as the inaccurate English "for all"; für viele* would be correct.  The committee who drew up the Irish translation of the Mass wished to use ar son chách, which is "for all".  (Father Benedict** used ar son na sluaighte-"for  the hosts"-in the Latin-Irish missal in use before the liturgical changes.  This is ambiguous.***)

At the time the draft Irish missal was in circulation, the then Archbishop of Tuam, Mgr Joseph Cunnane announced he would not permit this version of the Mass to be said in his diocese.  Tuam has the largest Gaeltacht of any Irish diocese and Archbishop Cunnane held a masters of arts in Irish as well as an earned doctorate in divinity****.  The compromise formula was ar son an chine dhaonna which literally is an ambiguous "for the human race", which seems to follow the French pour la multitude.  French is the only major European language which does not translate pro multis as "for all".  One suspects it is more than a coincidence that several translation committees made the same deviation from the Latin.
Impoverished version
After four decades of discussion, the new missal in English is ready and is being rolled out in a piecemeal manner, which varies considerably from diocese to diocese.  In Meath, this has been more progressive than in Armagh or Dublin.  In Meath, one could remark on the similarity between the English and the German Masses at a very early stage.  The translation goes beyond mere accuracy.  The language of the new missal is more sacral and formal than previously.  It has also evoked the anger of an ageing generation of clerics who seem to think nobody wanted this.  I wrote this piece to illustrate how that has never been my experience.l

Anglophones are not renowned for learning other languages, but the monoglot nature of the opposition to the new translation astounds me, especially in a country where there are two vernacular languages, one of which is more faithful than the other to the ordinary form Latin Mass.  A cursory comparison between the Confiteor or Gloria in English with that in Latin or another language will show not only how inaccurate, but also how impoverished the current English version is.  It has been pointed out that the arguments against the new translation have been very patronising towards the majority of the faithful.  However the main issue seems to be the alleged exclusivity of the language.
Inclusive Turkish
This is a case of déjà vu.  Similar arguments were brought out in relation to the tardy English translation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church nearly 20 years ago.  But the arguments regarding exclusivity/inclusivity are themselves products of a monoglot mentality.  Most other languages have a marked tendency towards so-called exclusivity.  German is particularly "bad".  I am informed Turkish on the other hand is a model inclusive language.  How many people would entertain the argument (which no doubt has been made from time to time) that women in Turkey are in a better position that women in Germany or Austria?  The females among Germany's large Turkish community certainly have not said much about this.

In our own country, one of the most prestigious positions in the Irish public service is that of Chairman of the Revenue Commissioners.  The current Chairman is a woman and there are no deafening cries to call her "chairperson".  I also recall informal situations where females addressed mixed audiences as "guys" or "lads" with no objection, but although "men" was accepted formally in the same sense into the late twentieth century, this is no longer the case.  My own view is that this should not be an issue and the translators might have considered there was little point in allowing an argument to develop.

For all that, there are problems with the new English translation.  It is not one of the glories of the English language.  The proclamations "The Word of the Lord", "The Gospel of the Lord" and "The Mystery of Faith", though common for a long time in the United States, grate on this writer's ears, as the announcement seems to have little connexion with anything.  The flow of the words is not as natural as in the case of Irish or German.

The previous translation was hardly beautiful either, though I suspect that the older translators were more familiar with English literature, especially English poetry, than those who worked on the current version.  The trouble is that the original translators let the English-speaking world down badly.  Much was lost and  in an era where Catholics were allegedly being persuaded to turn more toward Scripture, many of the biblical allusions in the Mass were contorted beyond recognition-even the Anglican communion service was closer to the Latin than the English Mass.  One hopes this is now addressed.
Protestant experience
However, one must understand that it is not at all easy to render the Mass in the vernacular, especially in a language so widely spoken as English.  The more liturgically-focused Protestant denominations have plenty of experience of these problems.  Our experience shows that revising something temporary is not easy and one still hears people using the responses introduced in superseded translations.  It will take a long time to get used to this one.
FOOTNOTES
* This is the translation given in the Schott Missal.  Father Anselm Schott was a Benedictine monk who compiled the most popular German-Latin missal in use prior to the liturgical changes.  Pope Benedict traces his interest in liturgy to receiving his first Schott missal as a young boy.
** Father Benedict of the Mother of God OCD who compiled the Latin-Irish missal in 1958 for Irish-speaking Catholics.
***  The Divine Liturgy of St John Chrysostom in Irish, a translation from Greek and Old Church Slavonic, uses ar son móráin, "for many".  This is the most accurate Irish version.  I have not seen any eastern Catholic liturgy of any linguistic origin using any formula other than "for many".
**** I am indebted to John Heneghan for this information.  He has done postgraduate research into the contribution of priests working in Maynooth to the Irish language, which includes the translation into Irish of the Missale Romanum and the Bible.  This was carried out in the years following the Second Vatican Council and merits an academic paper in its own right.  John was also able to tell me that the editor of the Bible translation, Rev Professor Pádraig Ó Fiannachta was dismissive of the Jerusalem Bible as a translation model.  This is typically used for readings at Mass in English in Ireland and Britain.

The Brandsma Review, Issue 117, November-December 2011.

An Bíobla Naofa: The First Catholic Bible in Irish

AN BÍOBLA NAOFA: THE FIRST CATHOLIC BIBLE IN IRISH
By JOHN HENEGHAN

ACOMMITTEE WAS established in 1945 to make an Irish version of the New Testament available. Seán Ó Floinn, Éamonn Kissane and Donnchadh Ó Floinn were on that committee. Donnchadh Ó Floinn was responsible for the translation through the 1950s particularly Mark 1-8. Pádraig Ó Fiannachta and Tómas Ó Fiaich guided Luke through the printing stage. Pádraig Ó Fiannachta, Colmán Ó Huallacháin OFM and Tómas Ó Fiaich were appointed to the Committee in 1966.

John was published in Irisleabhar Má Nuad in 1962 and most of the other books were published under the imprint of An Sagart. The basic Hebrew version was used to make the books available. The Jerome Biblical Commentary, and Peakes’ International Commentary were used as these were books with expert knowledge on the bible and they assisted the research that the scholars were undertaking.

Pádraig Ó Fiannachta hadn’t much regard for the English version of the Jerusalem Bible and he didn’t use the King James version either.

The only influence of Bedell (the older Protestant translation of the Bible into Irish) was to be found in the translation work of Joseph Duffy (later Bishop of Clogher). Padraig Ó Fiannachta made sure that each translator was assisted by a bible scholar with an L.S.S. as a basic qualification.
The Advisors
Pádraig Ó Nualláin OCSO: Tobit, Ecclesiastes, the Minor Prophets except Obadiah. He also did Hebrews.
Father Colmcille OCSO: The Psalms.  Máirtín Mac Conmara MSC wrote the forward to these.
Seán de hÍde SJ: Song of Songs.
Gearóid Ó Meachair: Forward to the Prophets.
Brendan Devlin: Isaiah.
Joseph Duffy: Ezechiel
Aibhistín Valkenburg OP: Jeremiah with the forward dedicated to Bedel.
Seán Mac Cárthaigh: Acts of the Apostles and Pauline letters except Hebrews.
Tomás Mac Aodha: 1-3 John.
Pádraig Ó Fiannachta translated : Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1-2 Samuel, 1-2 Kings, 1-2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Job, Proverbs, Sirach, and Mark cc. 9-16, John, James, 1-2 Peter, Jude, Apocalypse.
Seán Ó Caoinleáin advised Pádraig Ó Fiannachta with the Catholic Letters.

It was Caoimhín Ó Condúin C.M., who was an advisor to Padraig Ó Fiananchta to validate his own work. He was an advisor for Pentateuch, John and the Apocalypse. He had Father Dónall Ó Conchúir for the historical books as well as the information that is in the prefaces to the for the Wisdom books except the Psalms. Ó Fiannachta was also responsible for the Irish language in the General Introduction. He translated some of the introductions too because not everyone had good Irish.

He made an effort to ensure that the language was standardised and consistent throughout the work that started with the De Bhaldraithe Dictionary and reached its climax in 1977 with the Ó Dómhnaill Dictionary. Pádraig Ó Fiannachta was in correspondence with Muiris Ó Droighneáin about the standardisation also on a regular basis.
The other Advisors
Donald Ó Conchúir.
Sean Ó Caoinleáin.
Wilfrid Harrington OP.
Some other scholars were invited to make recommendations to the text as amendments:
Seán Mac Riabhaigh.
Pádraig Ó Nualláin OCSO.
Liam Leader.
Morgan Ó Curráin MSC.
Maolmhuire Ó Fiaich CSSp.

By 1977 there was an Irish version of each book published. Pádraig Ó Fiannachta got a grant from an Irish American Cultural Organisation through Cardinal Ó Fiaich to supply a single volume of the books. He promised do this within three years, he got two copies of each text as a heap of foolscap pages and he attached the text in the middle of the pages, he corrected them, he standardised them with help from other scholars, Muiris Ó Droighneáin particularly.  Then he prepared the text for the printer and went to the printer with IR£14,000 with paper which was bought from Clondalkin Paper Mills that were about to close but that were kept open for a extra few days.

There is a huge tea box in the Museum in Maynooth in which is the copy prepared for the printer and the various proof readings are there. The Bible was printed, bound ready within three years—27 months to be precise. Cardinal Ó Fiaich praised Padraig Ó Fiannachta’s work highly in the preface. It was accepted by the Church of Ireland as an authentic text and Archbishop Caird launched the second edition. A pocket edition was published after that and then it was published on CD-Rom in 1998. Pádraig Ó Fiannachta gave a chance to each of the scholars to read their work in proof format before submitting the final proofed version. He also dealt with the main business selling and commercial business arising from the bible
The Methodology and Analysis
As Pádraig Ó Fiannachta was the main worker on the translation, St John’s Gospel will be examined in detail, as he translated this himself. I chose this method as I don’t have Greek or Hebrew and as I am not a biblical scholar. Pádraig Ó Fiannachta himself recommended the Revised Standard Version (RSV) to me.

Ó Fiannachta adhers to the official standard for the most part; it is a style that is compact and precise that can be seen in it:

Thug Eoin freagra orthu. Déanaim féin baiste le huisce ar seisean ‘ach tá duine in bhur measc nach aithnid daoibh’ an té atá ag teacht i mo dhiaidh, nach fiú mé iall a chuaráin a scaoileadh (John 1: 26-27, An Bíobla Naofa, p. 1075).

The same style is adhered to throughout:

Tá an uair ag teacht—tá sí ann cheana nuair a chluinfidh na mairbh glór Mhac Dé agus iad seo a chluinfidh mairfidh siad. (John 5: 25, ibid. p. 1080)

If Ó Fiananchta’s version is compared to the RSV, some similariites and differences can be seen between them. In the English version the same concise style can be seen, but, as it was published in 1952, the English is somewhat archaic. In addition there are more notes at the foot of the pages in the English one, illustrating where the same stories can be found in the other Gospel stories. An example in critical thinking in biblical research is that of the woman accused of committing adultery which is found in the Irish Bible but is not found except as a footnote in the RSV:
John Eight

They went each to his own house, but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. Early in the morning he came again to the Temple. The Scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery and placing her in the midst they said to him…(John 7: 53-8: 4, RSV)

This was done in the light of the most recent research because the Church at the time wished to deemphasise the merciful Jesus in return to the original scriptural sense—the mercy of God was stressed in the 19th Devotional Revolution in reaction to the Jansenist heresy which all but omitted it. The Irish Bible was published as is known after the Second Vatican Council. In general, the Ó Fiannachta style follows the normal custom of bibles. It must be remembered that Pádraig Ó Fiannachta based his translation on the basic Hebrew version and also on the Greek version. It is an excellent effort and the talents of the translator must be praised.

John Heneghan (also Seán Ó hÉanacháin) has higher degrees in Modern Irish and extensive experience in second and third level Irish language education.  He lectures in the Training College of An Garda Síochána (the Irish national police academy) and also works for the force as a certified legal translator.

The Brandsma Review, Issue 128, September-October 2013

Smashing the Celtic Delusion

SMASHING THE CELTIC DELUSION
By PEADAR LAIGHLÉIS

The Quest for Celtic Christianity, Donald E. Meek, The Handsel Press, Edinburgh, 2000, 282 pp

CELTIC TIGER MAY BE DEAD, but the Celtic brand still attracts. Seven nations are unequivocally Celtic: Ireland; Scotland; the Isle of Man; Wales; Cornwall; Brittany; and Galicia. One can argue that the basic ethnic stock of northern Portugal; northern Spain; France; Belgium; Switzerland; southern Germany; northern Italy; Austria; the Czech Republic; western Hungary and south-western Poland is Celtic. Evidence for this is seen in artefacts, place names and classical writings. St Paul’s Letter to the Galatians is addressed to the descendants of Alexander the Great’s Celtic mercenaries who settled in Asia Minor. In Christ’s day, these people spoke a Celtic language.

Two millennia later a trip to a religious bookshop will turn up any number of titles offering Celtic spirituality, Celtic Christianity or the like. I can name David Adam, Esther de Waal and John O’Donoghue among many. Donald Meek addresses this phenomenon in this book.

My own background is in Celtic Studies; and I see academic Celtic scholars avoid popularised Celtica with good reason. Professor Meek is an exception. He is Professor Emeritus of Celtic in the University of Aberdeen; and is a native speaker of Scots Gaelic from the island of Tiree where his father served as a Baptist minister. His commitment to evangelical Christianity is clear, which adds power to many of his points more. One must commend his patience in carefully reading purported Celtic material written by people with limited, if any, understanding of the Celtic tongues.
Celtic Christianity…therapeutic spirituality
Professor Meek begins with the proliferation of books on Celtic Christianity remarkably compatible with popular therapeutic spirituality. He compares it to other outsider presentation of ethnic spiritualties, quoting reactions of real members of these communities: many Native Americans are not impressed at their depiction in such books. Ireland is the main Celtic country which buys into this, where he cites the late John O’Donoghue. Father O’Donoghue spoke Irish and studied philosophy and theology at advanced levels, but he has not shown much evidence of study of literature in Irish. The market for these
works is strongest in metropolitan England and the United States.

Professor Meek starts in the Highlands. Fifteen years after the 1746 Battle of Culloden, James Macpherson presented his “translation” of Ossian’s (Oisín) poems concerning his father Fingal (Fionn MacCumhaill). Macpherson may have used existing Gaelic poetry here, but no Gaelic original has been found and the work is considered Macpherson’s own, even with Hebridean influence. But as fraudulent we might see this, the Ossian cycle was enormously influential across Enlightened and Romantic Europe. Ossian left an impact on two critics: Ernest Renan (1823-92) and Matthew Arnold (1822-88). Renan and Arnold popularised Celtica, but neither understood any Celtic language. As such, they could not consider Ossian was Macpherson’s original work. While Renan and Arnold were active, there was solid academic work in progress particularly in Germany and early Irish and Welsh works were edited, translated and studied. Serious scholars like Kuno Meyer (1858-1919) and Douglas Hyde (1860-1949) did not distance themselves from the Celtic Twilight. In the Irish case, this study gave impetus to political nationalism, felt in other Celtic countries too.

Celtica moved on in the 1900s, but romanticism remained as it was. In the early twenty-first, Professor Meeks writes to separate the two. Anyone who visiting Glendalough could hear the Roman Church superseded the Celtic Church in the 12th century.  This partly reflects Reformation polemics, but the Celtic Church must be taken on its own terms. It was adamant it belonged to the Great Church. Its liturgy and scripture were Latin and it appealed to the See of Rome. This Church’s features: monasticism; relics; penance, were not proto-Protestant. If there was an eastern connexion, even with Egypt, it was because many early practices common to East and West survived in Celtic regions while declining elsewhere. Irish monks were very conservative regarding the date of Easter as Rome sought uniformity. As St Benedict defined western monasticism, Irish and British (Welsh, Cornish and Bretons) monks retained older models. The term anamchara literally means “soul friend”, was used to mean confessor and Professor Meek believes private confession was a Celtic development. The Hildebrandine reform was driven by Celts themselves in the Celtic nations.
Not unique to Celts
The romanticists emphasise the poetic Celts. But this separates the Celts from contemporary peoples. There are Anglo-Saxon literary visions and dreams.  Celtic Studies is tragically isolated from Mediaeval Studies and cognate disciplines. Many issues the Irish Church dealt with relating to marriage laws and other heathen survivals were encountered elsewhere. Most mediaeval European histories focus on England, France and the Holy Roman Empire rather than fringe nations. Yet the Norman occupation of Ireland, Wales and Sicily; the Teutonic Order’s crusade in the Baltic region; the Reconquista in Spain; and Norman expansion into Scotland offer newer perspectives which might lead us to think Celtic history less unique.

Professor Meek cites many working Celtic scholars; I will refer to three. Cork’s Donnchadh Ó Corráin often states what should be obvious. Celtic popularisers believe monastic hermits waxed lyrical on nature in verse, Professor Ó Corráin pointed out those who chose penitential life in wilderness were unlikely to notice natural beauty, and busy monastic scribes, writing in isolation from nature, were more likely composers. Maynooth’s Kim McCone made the case for reading early Irish literature as Christian work in Pagan Past and Christian Present in Early Irish Literature. Professor McCone refers to analogous studies in other areas (Icelandic sagas come to mind), to back up his thesis. Cambridge’s Patrick Sims-Williams has analysised philosophy and ideology behind Celtic Studies. I find Professor Sims-Williams’ ability to step back and compare trends here to other ideologies fascinating.

As stated above, Professor Meek is a practicing evangelical Protestant concerned with contemporary issues.He writes movingly of the importance of the Celtic saints to Protestantism and how steeped these figures were in Scripture. Much of the material he critiques is used in Protestant services. These are poor substitutes for the Bible. This is balm for the rat race, but is woefully inadequate for inner city underprivileged. Evangelisation is required and ancient saints would not have shirked this challenge; a reality check we have to learn from.

It has been a long time since I read a book on Celtica I enjoyed, as most of what I have reviewed is the dodgy material named and shamed in The Brandsma Review. But Professor Meek is not writing for Celtic Scholars. This is by far the best book on the topic I have read for non-specialists written by a specialist.

The Brandsma Review, Issue 132, May-June 2014

Looking Beyond the Obvious: Scripture in Irish Myth

LOOKING BEYOND THE OBVIOUS: SCRIPTURE IN IRISH MYTH
by PEADAR LAIGHLÉIS

Pagan Past and Christian Present in Early Irish Literature, Kim McCone, An Sagart, Maynooth, 1990, 287 pp

SOME BOOKS HAVE a long afterlife. This is why I am returning to a book I read on publication nearly a quarter century later. Not that Professor McCone’s thesis was new. Essentially he presents arguments already advanced by the late James Carney in the course of a lifetime, but especially in his 1955 book, Studies in Irish Literature and History. I was reminded of the significance of these, and other writings by students of Professor Carney from the Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies when I penned my review of Donald Meeks’ The Quest for Celtic Christianity in the Brandsma, no. 132. Given the praise Professor Meeks heaped on Pagan Past and Christian Present, I revisited the text.

The Romantic movement generated a new interest in the Celts throughout Europe. James MacPherson’s dubious Ossian poems and the whole Arthurian cycle made an imprint on the art and music of 19th century Europe. Meanwhile, studies in Sanskrit beginning in the 18th century initiated serious scientific study of ancient languages across a continent and a half. This meant that from the 1850s on, a great many of the earliest texts in Irish and Welsh were widely available. The effects this had on cultural and subsequently political history in Ireland is well-known (though perhaps less isolated than we imagine. The birth of many nations after 1918 did not just happen). This article will follow the intellectual developments within the
discipline since its emergence, all well documented in the book under review.
Psychological messages
In intellectual circles, the first reaction to the new study was to regard the material in Old and Middle Irish and Welsh as historical, or at least having a historical basis. The stories do give us an insight into the history of the Celts prior to Christianity and literacy, but it became quickly apparent that they could not be treated as historical. The second phase was to regard the tales as mythological, which is correct, and to subject them to the various interpretations of mythology, which yields a myriad of results. In the earlier days, this read as an attempt to explain or come to terms with natural phenomena, such as the weather or earthquakes. More recently, it has been popular to read psychological messages into myth. There is a point to this; Dr Theodore Dalrymple is fond of stating there are good reasons why the stepmother is the resident villain in many fairytales, but this can be carried too far.

In Ireland, a century of scholarship went into analysing the texts for evidence of paganism. The objective was to reconstruct the culture of primeval Ireland. This was fueled by nationalism which followed from the 19th century continental romantic movement, but there was an international context for this too. The growth in Indo-European studies inspired a seeking of connexions between Ireland and several other related cultures in Europe and Asia in a realm stretching as far East as India and including much of the Middle East and Central Asia. There is no doubt that similarities do occur, but some serious Celtic scholars went overboard. The premise that the corpus of Irish literature, almost exclusively committed to writing in monastic scriptoria, was essentially reflective of a much older oral tradition which extended deep into the Iron Age to a time before
either classical civilisation or Christianity made a mark. If obvious “monkish interpolations” were disregarded,
this is what you got.

This is reflective of literary criticism in general, when applied to ancient literatures. Biblical studies, for example, routinely break Genesis down into three or four strands, while parsing the Gospels of Matthew and Luke for evidence of what they borrowed from Mark and what came from the hypotethical Q document. The problem with reading texts for evidence of long oral traditions or traces of lost documents is that the text itself is neglected. The first two chapters of Genesis may well come from a less ancient source than the rest of the book, but the fact they are put first is part of the reason why Genesis has come down to us in its present shape and the first point of reference is what we have rather than what might have been. Likewise, the Táin Bó Cuailgne is first a text composed in the later part of the first millenium. It certainly does reflect strongly on what went before it, but it should be first dealt with on its own terms. Just consider how far we would get if we were to read this morning’s editorials by asking about the writer’s personal history, background or possible prejudices. We could conjecture a lot, rightly or wrongly, and it would be fascinating, but we would have ignored the point he was trying to make. We also might remember that oral tradition, folklore, is not a static but a dynamic process; folktales change over time to reflect new realities.
Collective imagination
James Carney was aloof of all this. Professor Carney proposed that the most obvious reference for the monks dealing in Irish legends were biblical and classical themes. He didn’t always get it right. The story of Cormac Mac Airt begins with the future high king being suckled by a wolf, before being rescued by shepherds and only later realising his true birth as a prince. Professor Carney naturally saw Romulus in this tale, but wider studies in Indo-European myth shows Cyrus of Persia (Farsi is an Indo-European language) going through the same pattern, the transition from the animal environment through humble human society to regal splendour. Greek and Germanic sagas show the same thing. But to see how deeply ingrained this sequence is on humanity, look no further than the Nativity. St Luke says nothing about ox or ass; he just says Our Lady wrapped the Christ Child in swaddelling clothes and laid Him in a manger (Luke 2,7); it is collective imagination that has us see Our Lord born with the dumb beasts keeping Him warm, then adored by the Shepherds (Luke 2, 8-20), before finally being worshipped by the Magi, whom we see as the kings from the East (Matthew 2, 1-12). As in the case of Cormac, Romulus and Cyrus, when Christ is identified as a king, His life is in danger (Matthew 2, 13-18). The ancient heroic life is so powerful that when modern scriptwriters deal with Superman or Luke Skywalker, the screenplay is not much different.

One instance does not invalidate the professor’s thesis. What Professor McCone does is to show the ingenuity that the monastic scribes put into constructing what we now identify as early Irish literature. As St Augustine divided the history of mankind into six (or seven) ages, the Irish did likewise with their own history in Lebor Gabala (the Book of Invasions). The Old Testament is broken into five ages; there are five invasions of Ireland which correspond to these: the Partholonians; the Nemed; the Fir Bolg; the Tuatha Dé (Danann); and the Milesians. The extent to which this is shaped by the Old Testament is fascinating in its own right. The invaders from the sea, the Formorians, who bear more than a passing resemblance to the contemporary Vikings, are made to look like the Philistines. This is brought out very clearly when the tiny Lugh of the Tuatha Dé (Danann is usually omitted in the texts) kills the Formorian giant Balor of the Evil Eye with a sling. The wanderings of the Milesians over 40 years in the desert is very similar to the experience of the Children of Israel in the desert. The wisdom of Cormac MacAirt is contrasted with that of Solomon. The presentation of the druid is not too distant from that of the sons of Aaron in the Old Testament, but as these priests are villains in the Gospel, so too are the druids in the lives of St Patrick, whose coming heralds the dawn of the sixth age in Ireland, that of the Gospel. The confrontation between Patrick and druids resembles Moses’ clashes with Pharoah’s priests in Exodus (eg 7, 8-13) and that of Elias with the priests of Baal in 1 Kings (18, 20- 46). In terms of narrative, St Patrick ushers in the New Testament period in Ireland.
Advanced monastic schools
To put this in context, Ireland’s monastic schools developed very fast and absorbed a sizeable amount of classical literature, the Scriptures, the apocrypha and the works of the Fathers. The quality of Latin was very high and the speed with which learning was relayed was fast. Within 50 years of the death of St Isidore of Seville in 636, Irish authors were frequently quoting him, which isn’t found commonly in continental Europe outside Spain prior to 700. The degree to which ecclesiastical influence pervaded can be astonishing. The early Irish church recognised seven minor and major orders between porter and bishop (acolyte was not included); the various secular ranks of society were similarly stratified. If one analyses the linguistics of many of the old Irish tales without looking for biblical or classical themes, one will find that much of the language is either a direct borrowing from Latin or a calque, which is the compounding of two Irish words to translate a Latin concept based on the fusion of two Latin words. Much of the work in Irish followed the Irish monks wherever they went in Europe. The decoding of Old Irish points out where: commentaries on the Pauline Epistles in Würzburg (associated with St Kilian); on the Psalter in Milan (near St Columbanus’ Bobbio) and Priscian’s Latin grammar in San Gallen (named after St Gall). These texts are all in Latin, but the marginal notation in Old Irish enables us to construct the language.
A very different picture
What this book does is celebrate the breath-taking achievements of Irish monasteries in the period between St Patrick and the Norman invasion. This was an extremely erudite and self-confident Church, one which carried the Gospel and learning with it throughout western Europe. What makes this different from the scholarship before is that it does not try to speculate on the type of culture which dominated Ireland in the centuries prior to Christianity–I cannot even say with certainty if there was only one such culture. What Professor McCone does is focus on the culture of those writing these texts and who their readers were. This presents a very different picture; he himself cites the example of studies in Icelandic sagas which led to reading them as an early Christian literature as a pattern for Irish studies to follow.

This book is for specialists, though it could be read with profit by scholars outside the area of Celtic Studies interested in the mediaeval period, whether from literary, historical, philosophical or theological angle. I have to praise Monsignor Pádraig Ó Fiannachta who went out on a limb to publish this work and many others like it. The author, Kim McCone, was professor of Old and Middle Irish in Maynooth for a couple of decades. He is of a high Anglican background and is married to the late Archbishop George Otto Simms’ daughter. Whatever of his personal religious convictions, he emphasised to his mainly lay students that he was teaching from the perspective of an agnostic and also that this was his current view, which was subject to revision. I cannot tell what the overall effect was, but I know a good proportion of his students found they had little option but improve their biblical knowledge to appreciate the lectures which were the basis of this book. I was one of these myself.

The Brandsma Review, Issue 135, November-December 2014