Bibliography
Donnchadh Ó Corráin
b. 28 February 1942–d. 25 October 2017
Ó Corráin
Works authored
Ó Corráin, Donnchadh, The Irish church, its reform and the English invasion, Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2017. 160 pp.
abstract:
This book radically reassesses the reform of the Irish Church in the twelfth century, on its own terms and in the context of the English Invasion that it helped precipitate. Professor Ó Corráin sets these profound changes in the context of the pre-Reform Irish church, in which he is a foremost expert. He re-examines how Canterbury’s political machinations drew its archbishops into Irish affairs, offering Irish kings and bishops unsought advice, as if they had some responsibility for the Irish church: the author exposes their knowledge as limited and their concerns not disinterested. The Irish Church, its Reform and the English Invasion considers the success of the major reforming synods in giving Ireland a new diocesan structure, but equally how they failed to impose marriage reform and clerical celibacy, a failure mirrored elsewhere. And when St Malachy of Armagh took the revolutionary step of replacing indigenous Irish monasticism with Cistercian abbeys and Augustinian priories, the consequences were enormous. They involved the transfer to the bishops and foreign orders of vast properties from the great traditional houses (such as Clonmacnoise and Monasterboice) which, the author argues, was better called asset-stripping, if not vandalism. Laudabiliter satis (1155/6), Pope Adrian IV’s letter to Henry II, gave legitimacy to English royal intervention in Ireland on the specious grounds that the Irish were Christians in name, pagan in fact. Henry came to Ireland in 1171, most Irish kings submitting to him without a blow, and, at the Council of Cashel (1171/2), the Irish episcopate granted the kingship of Ireland to him and his successors forever – a revolution in church and state. These momentous events are re-evaluated here, the author delivering a damning verdict on the motivations of popes, bishops and kings.
(source: Four Courts Press)
abstract:
This book radically reassesses the reform of the Irish Church in the twelfth century, on its own terms and in the context of the English Invasion that it helped precipitate. Professor Ó Corráin sets these profound changes in the context of the pre-Reform Irish church, in which he is a foremost expert. He re-examines how Canterbury’s political machinations drew its archbishops into Irish affairs, offering Irish kings and bishops unsought advice, as if they had some responsibility for the Irish church: the author exposes their knowledge as limited and their concerns not disinterested. The Irish Church, its Reform and the English Invasion considers the success of the major reforming synods in giving Ireland a new diocesan structure, but equally how they failed to impose marriage reform and clerical celibacy, a failure mirrored elsewhere. And when St Malachy of Armagh took the revolutionary step of replacing indigenous Irish monasticism with Cistercian abbeys and Augustinian priories, the consequences were enormous. They involved the transfer to the bishops and foreign orders of vast properties from the great traditional houses (such as Clonmacnoise and Monasterboice) which, the author argues, was better called asset-stripping, if not vandalism. Laudabiliter satis (1155/6), Pope Adrian IV’s letter to Henry II, gave legitimacy to English royal intervention in Ireland on the specious grounds that the Irish were Christians in name, pagan in fact. Henry came to Ireland in 1171, most Irish kings submitting to him without a blow, and, at the Council of Cashel (1171/2), the Irish episcopate granted the kingship of Ireland to him and his successors forever – a revolution in church and state. These momentous events are re-evaluated here, the author delivering a damning verdict on the motivations of popes, bishops and kings.
(source: Four Courts Press)
Ó Corráin, Donnchadh, Clavis litterarum Hibernensium: medieval Irish books & texts (c. 400–c. 1600), 3 vols, Corpus Christianorum, Turnhout: Brepols, 2017.
abstract:
This three-volume ground-breaking and comprehensive bibliography of Irish texts and manuscripts is the first study of its kind to describe the entire historical and literary output of Irish writers, at home and abroad, throughout the middle ages (4th to 17th centuries). It surveys writers in Latin and the vernaculars, ranging through biblica, liturgica, computistica, hagiographica and grammatica, as well as all the genres of Irish and the other vernacular writings of Ireland. The focus is on both individual manuscripts and textual transmission. In the case of manuscripts it succinctly lists all the salient information (origin, provenance and date, foliation, pagination and dimensions), accompanied by a detailed chronologically arranged bibliography for every codex. For individual texts it lists the manuscripts in which they occur, or, when relevant, where such a list can be found, together with a comprehensive bibliography of relevant publications. For both manucripts and texts, there are running cross-references to the standard works of reference. The Index Manuscriptorum is the most comprehensive of its type ever provided for this subject. Moreover, the chapters on manuscripts and texts written in Irish provide the first full treatment of several areas, including annals, genealogies, vernacular law, early poetry, bardic poetry and metrics.
includes: Donnchadh Ó Corráin, Clavis litterarum Hibernensium: medieval Irish books, vol. 1 • Donnchadh Ó Corráin, Clavis litterarum Hibernensium: medieval Irish books, vol. 2 • Donnchadh Ó Corráin, Clavis litterarum Hibernensium: medieval Irish books, vol. 3
abstract:
This three-volume ground-breaking and comprehensive bibliography of Irish texts and manuscripts is the first study of its kind to describe the entire historical and literary output of Irish writers, at home and abroad, throughout the middle ages (4th to 17th centuries). It surveys writers in Latin and the vernaculars, ranging through biblica, liturgica, computistica, hagiographica and grammatica, as well as all the genres of Irish and the other vernacular writings of Ireland. The focus is on both individual manuscripts and textual transmission. In the case of manuscripts it succinctly lists all the salient information (origin, provenance and date, foliation, pagination and dimensions), accompanied by a detailed chronologically arranged bibliography for every codex. For individual texts it lists the manuscripts in which they occur, or, when relevant, where such a list can be found, together with a comprehensive bibliography of relevant publications. For both manucripts and texts, there are running cross-references to the standard works of reference. The Index Manuscriptorum is the most comprehensive of its type ever provided for this subject. Moreover, the chapters on manuscripts and texts written in Irish provide the first full treatment of several areas, including annals, genealogies, vernacular law, early poetry, bardic poetry and metrics.
Websites
Hogan, Edmund, and Donnchadh Ó Corráin [rev. and corr.], Onomasticon Goedelicum: revised and corrected, rev. ed., Online: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, School of Celtic Studies, 2017–present. URL: <https://www.dias.ie/celt/celt-publications-2/onomasticon-goedelicum/>.
abstract:
This digital version of Edmund Hogan’s Onomasticon goedelicum locorum et tribuum Hiberniae et Scotiae: an index, with identifications, to the Gaelic names of places and tribes (Dublin 1910) is based on (i) the digital version produced by the Locus Project, Dept of Early Irish, University College Cork, under the direction of Professor Pádraig Ó Riain; and (ii) a digital version of the same produced by Stanford University. The Cork text is far superior. The separate files for each letter have been concatenated and typographical errors, where noticed, have been corrected. Where possible, OS standard forms have been used, but this vast task has not been completed. Hogan’s list of abbreviations is highly eccentric, and quite incomplete. I have identified many, but quite a number remain undecoded. Where possible Hogan’s abbreviations have been replaced by more obvious ones. A table is attached (‘List of manuscript and printed sources: current marks and abbreviations’, below). I have made hundreds of additions from my own desultory reading. This digital version was never intended for publication — it is only a personal research tool — but I have been persuaded that others may find it useful that it may save them some time. Note that it has not been properly proofed and I make no claims for accuracy.
(source: Introduction by Donnchadh Ó Corráin)
abstract:
This digital version of Edmund Hogan’s Onomasticon goedelicum locorum et tribuum Hiberniae et Scotiae: an index, with identifications, to the Gaelic names of places and tribes (Dublin 1910) is based on (i) the digital version produced by the Locus Project, Dept of Early Irish, University College Cork, under the direction of Professor Pádraig Ó Riain; and (ii) a digital version of the same produced by Stanford University. The Cork text is far superior. The separate files for each letter have been concatenated and typographical errors, where noticed, have been corrected. Where possible, OS standard forms have been used, but this vast task has not been completed. Hogan’s list of abbreviations is highly eccentric, and quite incomplete. I have identified many, but quite a number remain undecoded. Where possible Hogan’s abbreviations have been replaced by more obvious ones. A table is attached (‘List of manuscript and printed sources: current marks and abbreviations’, below). I have made hundreds of additions from my own desultory reading. This digital version was never intended for publication — it is only a personal research tool — but I have been persuaded that others may find it useful that it may save them some time. Note that it has not been properly proofed and I make no claims for accuracy.
(source: Introduction by Donnchadh Ó Corráin)
Works edited
Contributions to journals
Ó Corráin, Donnchadh, “Orosius, Ireland, and Christianity”, Peritia 28 (2017): 113–134.
abstract:
Orosius, author of Historiarum Adversum Paganos Libri vii, was a Briton, born at latest c. ad 375. Taken by Irish raiders, he spent years (c. ad 400) as a captive, held by traders, on the south shore of the Shannon estuary. He escaped and probably reached Galicia before ad 405. Ordained priest, he served at Bracara (now Braga in Portugal). He corresponded with St Augustine and moved to Hippo in ad 414. Sent to the East by Augustine, he played an undistinguished role at the councils of Jerusalem and Diospolis (ad 415). He settled at Carthage, where he wrote his main work, originally at the instigation of Augustine. He disappears after a voyage to the Balearic Islands. His is the first textual witness to Christianity in Ireland, observed c. ad 400, written up in ad 416-17.
abstract:
Orosius, author of Historiarum Adversum Paganos Libri vii, was a Briton, born at latest c. ad 375. Taken by Irish raiders, he spent years (c. ad 400) as a captive, held by traders, on the south shore of the Shannon estuary. He escaped and probably reached Galicia before ad 405. Ordained priest, he served at Bracara (now Braga in Portugal). He corresponded with St Augustine and moved to Hippo in ad 414. Sent to the East by Augustine, he played an undistinguished role at the councils of Jerusalem and Diospolis (ad 415). He settled at Carthage, where he wrote his main work, originally at the instigation of Augustine. He disappears after a voyage to the Balearic Islands. His is the first textual witness to Christianity in Ireland, observed c. ad 400, written up in ad 416-17.
Ó Corráin, Donnchadh, “Synodus II Patricii and vernacular law”, Peritia 16 (2002): 335–343.
abstract:
This paper traces a legal sentence from Synodus II Patricii (where it bears primarily on Mt 19:19) through its subsequent development and expansion as contract law in Irish vernacular law texts. This development has serious implications for the expansion of the church’s claims to property and income from the faithful. The texts provide further evidence that there was a single legal culture, embracing the Latin and vernacular laws, in early medieval Ireland.
abstract:
This paper traces a legal sentence from Synodus II Patricii (where it bears primarily on Mt 19:19) through its subsequent development and expansion as contract law in Irish vernacular law texts. This development has serious implications for the expansion of the church’s claims to property and income from the faithful. The texts provide further evidence that there was a single legal culture, embracing the Latin and vernacular laws, in early medieval Ireland.
Ó Corráin, Donnchadh, “Some cruxes in Críth gablach”, Peritia 15 (2001): 311–320.
abstract:
In the legal tract, Críth gablach, some technical terms that have to do with early medieval farming and wood-working—eipit, dias fidchrann—and with the slaughtering of pigs paid in render to lords—cuts called tarr and tinne—are difficult to define exactly. Here an attempt is made to explain them more precisely.
abstract:
In the legal tract, Críth gablach, some technical terms that have to do with early medieval farming and wood-working—eipit, dias fidchrann—and with the slaughtering of pigs paid in render to lords—cuts called tarr and tinne—are difficult to define exactly. Here an attempt is made to explain them more precisely.
Ó Corráin, Donnchadh, “Creating the past: the early Irish genealogical tradition [Carroll lecture 1992]”, Chronicon 1 (1997): 2: 1–32. URL: <http://xml.ucc.ie/chronicon/ocorrfra.htm>.
abstract:
Traditionally Irish early medieval genealogies were seen as the product of oral tradition, recorded at an early period by monastic writers. This is mistaken. No doubt there was an oral genealogical knowledge, but the genealogical record is modelled on the Old Testament genealogies.
abstract:
Traditionally Irish early medieval genealogies were seen as the product of oral tradition, recorded at an early period by monastic writers. This is mistaken. No doubt there was an oral genealogical knowledge, but the genealogical record is modelled on the Old Testament genealogies.
Ó Corráin, Donnchadh, “Caithréim Chellacháin Chaisil: history or propaganda?”, Ériu 25 (1974): 1–69.
Contents: The edition and the manuscripts -- Comment on the text -- Historical analysis of the text -- The Vikings and CCC -- The date and background of CCC -- The source-material used in CCC -- Conclusions.
: <link>
Contents: The edition and the manuscripts -- Comment on the text -- Historical analysis of the text -- The Vikings and CCC -- The date and background of CCC -- The source-material used in CCC -- Conclusions.
Contributions to edited collections or authored works
Ó Corráin, Donnchadh, “The penitential attributed to Columbanus”, in: Eleonora Destefanis (ed.), L’eredità di san Colombano: memoria e culto attraverso il Medioevo: costruire L’Europa: Colombano e la sua eredità = L’héritage de saint Colomban: mémoire et culte au Moyen Âge: construire L’Europe: Colomban et son héritage = Saint Colombanus’ legacy: memory and cult in the Middle Ages: making Europe: Columbanus and his legacy, Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2017. 131–146.
Ó Corráin, Donnchadh, “Áui, Úi, Uí: a palaeographical problem?”, in: Pádraic Moran, and Immo Warntjes (eds), Early medieval Ireland and Europe: chronology, contacts, scholarship. A Festschrift for Dáibhí Ó Cróinín, 14, Turnhout: Brepols, 2015. 301–309.
abstract:
Irish úa (‘grandson, descendant’), especially important in the formation of lineage names and surnames, has many forms in Old and Middle Irish, and what is taken to be its abbreviation h. has been expanded in many different ways by scholars. This is an enquiry into some of its forms and into a palaeographical problem about the origin of the abbreviation. The conclusion is that h. derives from Tironian a.
abstract:
Irish úa (‘grandson, descendant’), especially important in the formation of lineage names and surnames, has many forms in Old and Middle Irish, and what is taken to be its abbreviation h. has been expanded in many different ways by scholars. This is an enquiry into some of its forms and into a palaeographical problem about the origin of the abbreviation. The conclusion is that h. derives from Tironian a.
“Early medieval law, c. 700–1200”, in: Angela Bourke, Siobhán Kilfeather, and Maria Luddy [et al.] (eds), The Field Day anthology of Irish writing, vol. IV: Irish women's writing and traditions, Cork: Cork University Press, 2002. 6–44.
CELT – Cáin lánamna (pp. 22–26): <link>
Ó Corráin, Donnchadh, “Women and the law in early Ireland”, in: Mary OʼDowd, and Sabine Wichert (eds), Chattel, servant or citizen: women’s status in church, state and society, 19, Belfast: Institute of Irish Studies, Queen's University, 1995. 45–57.
CELT: <link>
Ó Corráin, Donnchadh, “Mael Muire Ua Dúnáin (1040-1117), reformer”, in: Pádraig de Brún, Seán Ó Coileáin, and Pádraig Ó Riain (eds), Folia Gadelica: essays presented by former students to R. A. Breatnach on the occasion of his retirement from the professorship of Irish language and literature at University College, Cork, Cork: Cork University Press, 1983. 47–53.
Ó Corráin, Donnchadh, “Foreign connections and domestic politics: Killaloe and the Uí Briain in twelfth-century hagiography”, in: Dorothy Whitelock, Rosamund McKitterick, and David N. Dumville (eds), Ireland in early medieval Europe: studies in memory of Kathleen Hughes, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982. 213–231.
Ó Corráin, Donnchadh, “Aspects of early Irish history”, in: Brian G. Scott (ed.), Perspectives in Irish archaeology: papers presented to the 5th annual seminar of the Association of Young Irish Archaeologists held in Dublin, November 1973, Belfast: Association of Young Irish Archaeologists, 1974. 64–75.
As honouree
Purcell, Emer, Paul MacCotter, Julianne Nyhan, and John Sheehan (eds), Clerics, kings and vikings: essays on medieval Ireland in honour of Donnchadh Ó Corráin, Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2015.
abstract:
This volume contains contributions from leading scholars working at the forefront of Irish medieval studies. It includes essays on archaeology, ecclesiology, hagiography, medieval history, genealogy, language, literature and toponymy. Subjects explored include: Latin and learning in early medieval Ireland; the historical context of early medieval literature; Viking armies and the importance of the Hiberno-Norse naval fleets; Ireland and its connections with the Scandinavian world; recent studies of wooden and Romanesque churches in pre-Norman Ireland; the coming of the Anglo-Normans; hitherto unpublished Anglo Norman charters; the origin and function of medieval rural deaneries; secular and ecclesiastical histories of later medieval Kilkenny; and the ‘named son’ in 16th-century Ireland.
(source: publisher)
abstract:
This volume contains contributions from leading scholars working at the forefront of Irish medieval studies. It includes essays on archaeology, ecclesiology, hagiography, medieval history, genealogy, language, literature and toponymy. Subjects explored include: Latin and learning in early medieval Ireland; the historical context of early medieval literature; Viking armies and the importance of the Hiberno-Norse naval fleets; Ireland and its connections with the Scandinavian world; recent studies of wooden and Romanesque churches in pre-Norman Ireland; the coming of the Anglo-Normans; hitherto unpublished Anglo Norman charters; the origin and function of medieval rural deaneries; secular and ecclesiastical histories of later medieval Kilkenny; and the ‘named son’ in 16th-century Ireland.
(source: publisher)
