Bibliography

Salvador
Ryan
s. xx–xxi

14 publications between 2003 and 2018 indexed
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2018

article
Ryan, Salvador, “The Bible and ‘the people’ in Ireland, ca. 1100–ca. 1650”, in: Bradford A. Anderson, and Jonathan Kearney (eds), Ireland and the reception of the Bible: social and cultural perspectives, London, New York: Bloomsbury, 2018. 43–58.

2015

article
Ryan, Salvador, “‘Scarce anyone survives a heart wound’: The wounded Christ in Irish bardic religious poetry”, in: Larissa Tracy, and Kelly DeVries (eds), Wounds and wound repair in medieval culture, 1, Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2015. 291–312.

2014

article
Ryan, Salvador, “Penance and the Privateer: handling sin in the bardic religious verse of the Book of the O’Conor Don (1631)”, in: Tadhg Ó hAnnracháin, and Robert Armstrong (eds), Christianities in the early modern Celtic world, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. 124–134.

2013

article
Ryan, Salvador, “‘Once I heard a story … from scripture does it come’: biblical allusions in Irish bardic religious poetry”, in: Seán Duffy (ed.), Princes, prelates and poets in medieval Ireland: essays in honour of Katharine Simms, Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2013. 524–537.
edited work
Leahy, Brendan, and Salvador Ryan (eds), Treasures of Irish Christianity: a people of the Word, Dublin: Veritas, 2013.  
abstract:
Treasures of Irish Christianity was published to great acclaim in the summer of 2012. This second volume offers readers further scholarly yet readily-accessible short articles on a vast array of treasures from the Irish Christian tradition, with a focus on the Irish and their relationship with the Word. It covers items ranging from religious folk tales to reflections on Yeats, Joyce, Kavanagh and Beckett; from words on the margins of ancient manuscripts to the first Lutheran congregation in Dublin; from early High Crosses to the thirteenth-century Kilcormac Missal; from the Medieval Office of St Brigid to Pugin architecture; and from Church of Ireland hymnody to the recent Share the Good News publication. Written by a large number of Irish scholars from a variety of disciplines, this second volume is also richly illustrated.
(source: Publisher)
abstract:
Treasures of Irish Christianity was published to great acclaim in the summer of 2012. This second volume offers readers further scholarly yet readily-accessible short articles on a vast array of treasures from the Irish Christian tradition, with a focus on the Irish and their relationship with the Word. It covers items ranging from religious folk tales to reflections on Yeats, Joyce, Kavanagh and Beckett; from words on the margins of ancient manuscripts to the first Lutheran congregation in Dublin; from early High Crosses to the thirteenth-century Kilcormac Missal; from the Medieval Office of St Brigid to Pugin architecture; and from Church of Ireland hymnody to the recent Share the Good News publication. Written by a large number of Irish scholars from a variety of disciplines, this second volume is also richly illustrated.
(source: Publisher)

2012

article
Ryan, Salvador, “‘No milkless cow’: the Cross of Christ in medieval Irish literature”, Studies in Church History 48 (2012): 83–106.  
abstract:

The cross of Christ in the Middle Ages was the most powerful symbol of God’s victory over sin, death and the forces of evil, while also representing the most abject suffering and degradation of Jesus Christ, the God-Man. A simplistic reading of the evolution of the theology of the cross during this period posits a transition from the early medieval victorious and heroic Christ figure, reigning and triumphant upon the cross, to a late medieval emaciated and tortured object of pity whose ignominious death was supposed to elicit heartfelt compassion for his plight and sincere sorrow for the sin which placed him on the beams of the tree of crucifixion. Of course, there is a great deal of value in this argument, and much evidence might be brought forward to support its central thesis. However, it should not be pushed too far; it might also be remembered that the essential paradox of Christ the victor-victim is a constant theme in Christian theology, expressed in the sixth-century Vexilla regis in its identification of the cross as ‘victim of the passion’s glory, by which life brought death to an end, and, by death, gave life again’ and in the hymn Victimae paschali laudes from the central medieval period: ‘Death with life contended, combat strangely ended, life’s own champion slain yet lives to reign’. The image of the victorious cross of Christ, conceived of as simultaneously an instrument of triumph and of torture, would persist right through the late medieval period, despite the development of a greater emphasis on the physical sufferings of Christ in his passion and their ever more graphic depictions. This essay, which examines the way in which the cross of Christ is presented in medieval Irish literature, provides sufficient examples to make this point clear; these are drawn from a variety of sources including religious verse, saints’ lives, medieval travel accounts and sermon material. Of course, these examples are best viewed within the context of a broader medieval European devotional culture from which Ireland was certainly not immune.

abstract:

The cross of Christ in the Middle Ages was the most powerful symbol of God’s victory over sin, death and the forces of evil, while also representing the most abject suffering and degradation of Jesus Christ, the God-Man. A simplistic reading of the evolution of the theology of the cross during this period posits a transition from the early medieval victorious and heroic Christ figure, reigning and triumphant upon the cross, to a late medieval emaciated and tortured object of pity whose ignominious death was supposed to elicit heartfelt compassion for his plight and sincere sorrow for the sin which placed him on the beams of the tree of crucifixion. Of course, there is a great deal of value in this argument, and much evidence might be brought forward to support its central thesis. However, it should not be pushed too far; it might also be remembered that the essential paradox of Christ the victor-victim is a constant theme in Christian theology, expressed in the sixth-century Vexilla regis in its identification of the cross as ‘victim of the passion’s glory, by which life brought death to an end, and, by death, gave life again’ and in the hymn Victimae paschali laudes from the central medieval period: ‘Death with life contended, combat strangely ended, life’s own champion slain yet lives to reign’. The image of the victorious cross of Christ, conceived of as simultaneously an instrument of triumph and of torture, would persist right through the late medieval period, despite the development of a greater emphasis on the physical sufferings of Christ in his passion and their ever more graphic depictions. This essay, which examines the way in which the cross of Christ is presented in medieval Irish literature, provides sufficient examples to make this point clear; these are drawn from a variety of sources including religious verse, saints’ lives, medieval travel accounts and sermon material. Of course, these examples are best viewed within the context of a broader medieval European devotional culture from which Ireland was certainly not immune.

edited work
Leahy, Brendan, and Salvador Ryan (eds), Treasures of Irish Christianity: people and places, images and texts, Dublin: Veritas, 2012.  
abstract:
This volume takes its cue from the theme of the International Eucharistic Congress to be held in Dublin in June 2012, ‘Communion with Christ and with one another’. In almost eighty short articles, a host of leading scholars from the worlds of history, liturgy, theology, philosophy, art history and Celtic Studies reflect upon aspects of the history of the Christian tradition in Ireland from the fifth to the twenty-first century, with a special emphasis on the relationship between the Irish people and the Eucharist. This is a wide-ranging illustrated collection which draws from the major Christian denominations in Ireland and includes entries on significant people, texts, images and events that have shaped the Irish Christian experience.
(source: Publisher)
abstract:
This volume takes its cue from the theme of the International Eucharistic Congress to be held in Dublin in June 2012, ‘Communion with Christ and with one another’. In almost eighty short articles, a host of leading scholars from the worlds of history, liturgy, theology, philosophy, art history and Celtic Studies reflect upon aspects of the history of the Christian tradition in Ireland from the fifth to the twenty-first century, with a special emphasis on the relationship between the Irish people and the Eucharist. This is a wide-ranging illustrated collection which draws from the major Christian denominations in Ireland and includes entries on significant people, texts, images and events that have shaped the Irish Christian experience.
(source: Publisher)

2011

article
Ryan, Salvador, “‘I, too, am a Christian’: early martyrs and their lives in the late medieval and early modern Irish manuscript tradition”, Studies in Church History 47 (2011): 193–207.

2009

article
Ryan, Salvador, “Fixing the eschatological scales: judgement of the soul in late medieval and early modern Irish tradition”, Studies in Church History 45 (2009): 184–195.

2007

article
Gray, Madeleine, and Salvador Ryan, “Mother of mercy: the Virgin Mary and the Last Judgment in Welsh and Irish tradition”, in: Karen Jankulak, and Jonathan M. Wooding (eds), Ireland and Wales in the Middle Ages, Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2007. 246–261.

2006

edited work
Ross, Rachel, Colmán Ó Clabaigh, and Salvador Ryan (eds), Art and devotion in late medieval Ireland, Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2006.
article
Ryan, Salvador, “Windows on late medieval devotional practice: Máire Ní Mháille’s ‘Book of Piety’ (1513) and the world behind the texts”, in: Rachel Ross, Colmán Ó Clabaigh, and Salvador Ryan (eds), Art and devotion in late medieval Ireland, Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2006. 1–15.

2004

article
Ryan, Salvador, “A slighted source: rehabilitating Irish bardic religious poetry in historical discourse”, Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies 48 (Winter, 2004): 75–99.

2003

article
Ryan, Salvador, “The persuasive power of a mother’s breast: the most desperate act of the Virgin Mary’s advocacy”, Studia Hibernica 32 (2002, 2002–2003): 59–74.