This book is a collection of fourteen of Professor Ó Cróinín's articles on Old Irish and early Irish history. It brings together the fruits of twenty years' research into the concepts of time and time-reckoning that were formulated by Irish scholars in the centuries between the coming of Christianity and the age of Bede. Revealing previously unknown or neglected manuscript materials, the collection provides a comprehensive overview of the earliest Irish scientific writings. Starting with new evidence about St Patrick himself, the essays demonstrate how Early Irish texts and ideas had a formative influence on the thinking of scholars such as the Venerable Bede and others, in the British Isles and on the continent, and laid the foundations for much of the scientific knowledge of the early middle ages.
Daibhi Ó Cróinín is Professor of history at NUI, Galway. He is the author of An Cuigiu Diochlaonadh (1994), Early medieval Ireland: 400-1200 (Routledge, 1995) and The Songs of Elizabeth Cronin: Irish traditional singer (FCP, 2000), as well as numerous articles on early Irish history.
