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In 1664, the Irish priest John Lynch published his Alithinologia as a refutation of a report by the Capuchin Richard O'Ferrall in 1658. Their debate provides two interesting examples of polemical texts written by Irish authors in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The style of both authors reflects their identity, that of an ardent Gaelic supporter of Rinuccini (O'Ferrall) and that of Old English cleric who supports the faction trying to achieve a peace agreement with the English as soon as possible (Lynch). This contribution will sketch the historical background of their debate, and contrast the authors in relation to their background, the content of their works and the form and style of their writings.

Dermot O'Meara's didactic-epic Ormonius, published in 1615, focuses upon the military career of the 10th Earl of Ormond, Thomas Butler. In doing so, however, it also negotiates, sometimes subtly, sometimes rather bluntly, serious problems of identity, personal, cultural and political (national) caused by the peculiar circumstances of those, like Butler and his poet O'Meara, born in the Kingdom of Ireland, with strong local ties and an affection for the Irish language, in a period when the policies of the English government were more and more inclined towards centralisation and Anglicisation.

Dermot O'Meara's Latin epic Ormonius (London 1615) was written by a native speaker of Irish who was also (at least) a good English-speaker. Though O'Meara's competence in both vernaculars is clear from the introductory material and from the poem itself, he appears to draw more attention to his knowledge of Irish through the use of Latin calques on place-names which directly reflect their Irish meanings. It is possible that O'Meara expected his target-audience — Gaelic-speaking Scots in the circle of King James I? — to pick up and appreciate these nuances.

In 1647 John Colgan published a transcript and Latin translation of a mid-ninth-century Irish poem about St Patrick; in 1685 Roderic O'Flaherty produced a series of transcriptions and translations of Old Irish verse in his historical study of Ireland, the Ogygia. This article examines the different approaches to translation employed by these scholars and the linguistic difficulties inherent in the process of translating Old Irish into Latin. The contrast between literal and literary translation is located in the differing antiquarian traditions represented by each author.