Texts/in Irish • CODECS: Online Database and e-Resources for Celtic Studies

These figures do not give an adequate picture of the total number of pre-modern, written Irish-language texts in existence, although they should give at least a minimum of such texts. CODECS is not complete, only progressively more so. Inscriptions are not considered below, but paratexts and sets of glosses are.

Texts with properties for language = Irish

1595 recorded, at least 1341 of which are in either prose or a mixture of prose and verse.

P.S. Of these, 10 are considered lost.

Language still undefined

Meaning relevant property values are currently missing for the following texts.

392 recorded

Although these entries are still waiting for contributors to add the appropriate language in the appropriate boxes, other data (property-value pairs) can help us find potentially relevant texts. For instance, of this group:

181 belong to "Irish narrative literature". Of these, for instance, 83 (incl. individual episodes of the Táin) belong to the "Ulster Cycle" (a subgroup within Irish narrative literature).

28 belong to "vernacular Irish verse"

41 belong to "Irish histories" (incl. both Irish and Latin texts).

31 belong to "Irish religious literature" (incl. both Irish and Latin texts).

Note that overlap between these categories is possible. For example, 7 belong to both "Irish narrative literature" and "vernacular Irish verse".

Additional figures from the manuscripts?

Texts entered in tables of contents for particular manuscripts do not always link to an entry (yet). In other words, their provisonal titles are 'reserved' and made available to the database, but there are no associated data that allow us to classify a text as Irish, Latin or something other. For now, I will ignore items for which no title has been reserved (yet), although this group will no doubt include many Irish-language texts.

There are 1298 manuscripts (incl. composite structures and individual units) of Irish provenance with a catalogue entry in CODECS, some of which have full or more commonly, incomplete tables of contents. Together, individual texts linked from these tables of contents amount to 3238 items, an unknown number of which are Irish. Of these, 2338 texts are included in the catalogue and at least 1527 are written in Irish.

This then leaves us with 900 that we could call "reserved items" (no catalogue entry). If we are justified in applying the same ratio, then about 602 of them would be Irish.