Seoladh Leabhair: Bone and Marrow/Cnámh agus Smior: An Anthology of Irish Poetry from Medieval to Modern

Geoffrey Keating/Seathrún Céitinn (c. 1569–c. 1644) author of Foras Feasa ar Éirinn, a history of Ireland from earliest times to the twelfth century offered a devastating indictment of previous historians who had both consistently and consciously ignored the achievements of the native Irish. “The bone and marrow of history,” he assured skeptical readers, was to be found in poems, in the poetic tradition of the Irish language. Across the turbulent and often traumatic centuries, such poets witnessed and gave witness to a multiplicity of Irish experiences; the rich and multifaceted tradition they created is both a reckoning with Irish, European, and global realities, and an imaginative response to them. This bilingual anthology casts a wide net, and traces Irish history since the sixth century to the present day, with the aid of introductory essays and headnotes by team of twenty-four renowned international scholars, it makes evident that so much of the bone and marrow of Irish history and culture is poetry.