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Life
d.1959 [Gl. Ghearóid Í Mhurchadha]; appt. Prof. of History of Celtic Literature, UCD; ed. Éigse, 1939-1959; author of Saga and Myth in Ancient Ireland [q.d.] and The Ossianic Lore and Romantic Tales of Medieval Ireland (1961); taught numerous Irish scholars incl. James Carney and Francis Shaw, SJ.
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Works
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Bibliographical details
Saga and Myth in Ancient Ireland [Irish Life & Culture, 10] (Dublin: Cultural Relations Committee of Ireland / Colm Ó Lochlainn 1955), 64pp. [See extract in RICORSO Library, “Critical Classics”, infra]
Obiter dicta: See Dillon & Chadwick, ‘Celtic Religion and Mythology and the Literature of the Otherworld’ [Chap. 7], in The Celtic Realms, 1967): ‘The Irish gods are neither “little people” nor “fairies”, but tall and beautiful and fair; in all their physical strength and power and fairness of countenance, and even dress, they are superior to human men and women. They recall rather the descriptions of the Gauls which we find in Classical writers. There are no withces or devils, no puerile miracles or mere vulgar displays of magical power. The suprenatural and the marvellous are invested with restraint and dignity. No question of guilt, or punishment or judgement in an after life ever disturbs the serenity of what Gerard Murphy has called that “strange loveliness” of Celtic mythology. It is this “strange loveliness” of “the otherworld atmosphere which gives its special beauty to the Irish mythological cycle.”’ (See Myles Dillon & Nora Chadwick, ‘Celtic Religion and Mythology and the Literature of the Otherworld’ [Chap. 7], The Celtic Realms, London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson 1967, p.158.)
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