Recently, with the college’s generous support, the department has been able to establish a research project to collect, translate and edit the Latin texts written in Ireland between 1500 and around 1750. From the end of the Roman Empire in the West (476 AD), Latin and Greek held a central place in the Western European education system. You may be surprised to learn that there was far more Latin produced between the end of the Roman Empire and now than has survived from the whole of the so-called classical period. The fascinating thing about such writing is that although in Latin, it really belongs to the culture of the period. And so co-operation across the normal department and subject pisions is essential if we are to understand the material fully.

We began this project with the establishment of an interdisciplinary seminar, to read, translate and comment on an important history of Ireland published in Latin in 1584, by the Dubliner Richard Stanihurst. The membership of the seminar includes scholars from Ancient Classics, English, Hispanic Studies, History and Sean agus Meán and Nua Ghaelige [Old, Middle and Modern Irish], research students from a number of these departments, and a local solicitor who is interested in Irish genealogy. It also has collaborators in other institutions, both in Ireland and in the United States. The seminar and project hope to host an international conference in UCC in 2001 on Stanihurst and his world. The project is working out from this base, with the first tasks the capture in digital form of the texts of Stanihurst, their translation and commentary. The translation of “On Irish History” is being done by my colleague John Barry and the computer and bibliographical work, and the collation of the seminar’s work on the commentary by Margaret Lantry, the Project Manager.

Why pick this work? Well, surprisingly, though Stanihurst is a central figure in the Irish Renaissance, and his book De rebus in Hibernia Gestis. “On Irish History” is an important source for 16th century Ireland, there is no complete translation of it and no commentary to consult on it. So, when we have finished this task, something of our heritage which had become inaccessible will be made easily available.

I wouldn’t have you think that this sort of work is devoid of fun, however painstaking it has to be. The text we are studying is full of fascinating passages, which generate lively discussion (and remind some present of the occasional apposite joke). And its political stance is intriguing. If I may be anachronistic, this is the work of a Catholic Unionist, a Palesman who describes the Irish as a different - and strange - race. So exasperating did the early 17th century owner of the UCC copy of this book find some passages that he scratched them through in ink and wrote marginal protests - in Irish. Here are a few snippets, to whet your appetites and to illustrate the sort of problems we come across:

“They use, as a sovereign medicament, a certain wine refined by fire, mixed with no other liquid, which is commonly called Aqua Vitae, by whose heat food is rendered easier to digest. This type of potion they distil with the most profound craft: to such an extent that, if a tiny flame is applied, the whole rapidly ignites, like gunpowder. They buy a great quantity of wine in the neighbouring towns, which by way of a laugh and a joke, they are accustomed to call the King of Spain’s son. With both kinds of intoxicating liquor, with the drinking up of full hampers of wine, they overwhelm themselves.”

I think everyone will know what the first drink is. The Latin phrase Aqua Vitae, the water of life, is usually directly rendered in Irish as uisce beatha, none other than whiskey. But why did they call wine ‘the King of Spain’s son’ and what was so funny about it. That will need a good long note, when we finally discover the reason.

Here’s another gem. What is being described in this passage?

“The Irish also use, instead of the trumpet, a certain wooden pipe, manufactured with the most skilful craft, to which a bag composed of hide, and folded together very tightly with bindings, is stuck. From the side of the skin there sticks out a pipe, through which, as through a tube, the piper, with inflated neck and flowing cheeks, blows. Then the little skin, filled with air, swells. As it swells, he presses it in again with his arm. As a result of this pressing, two other pieces of hollowed out wood, that is, one shorter and one longer, emit a sound both loud and shrill. There is also a fourth pipe, with holes in different places, which the blower regulates by the fluency of his fingers, here closing, there opening the apertures, in such a way that he can easily draw from the upper pipes a sound either loud or gentle, whatever way he decides. However, the stem and stern of the whole matter is that the air should not travel through any other tiny part of the little bag, except the entrance to the pipes. For if anyone were to puncture the sack even with the point of a needle, it would be all over with that instrument, since the bellows would suddenly slacken. This practice is sometimes followed by practical jokers, whenever they want to cause these pipers trouble.”

This is, of course, an account of the Irish bag-pipe. Clearly he was not himself a lover of the instrument. The remarkable thing about this description is that Stanihurst uses words and phrases chiefly from the Roman orator Cicero, who had almost certainly never come up against a bag-pipe. And this use of a specific style in Latin leads to another class of problems with this type of text. Here’s a final conundrum.

“The Kerns (Karni) whirl spears fitted with thongs so manfully by strength of muscle that you would think the spears, like a circle, were forced into an orbital circuit.”

But what on earth does it mean? We hear only here of the Irish spear, thrown by means of a leather thong. There’s apparently no other evidence for this. But when we find we can trace to specific classical Latin texts the curious phrases used in this sentence, we begin to suspect that the writer has simply tried to impress and entertain his learned reader with linguistic spectacle. As a result, we may have to remove the thonged spear from the history books.

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