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Foras Feasa ar Éirinn

Patrick S. Dinneen , ed., 
The History of Ireland, by Geoffrey Keating D.D.,
Vol. III (See Vols. 4, 8 &15)

viii + 388 pp.
1908, Volume 9,
ISBN 1 870 16609 4

This work, written by the Tipperary priest, Geoffrey Keating (Seathrún Céitinn), between c 1618 and 1634, has been described as 'the most influential of all works of Gaelic historiography'. Drawing upon the annals, Lebor Gabála, and the various story cycles of early Irish literature, Keating provided an account of the history of Ireland from the earliest times to the coming of the Normans, an event which marked the beginning of the presence of his own people on the island. Keating set the standard for Early Modern Irish prose and, in the early days of the Gaelic League, there were some who advocated the adoption of his style as the standard of Modern Irish. In his foreword to the 1987 reprint of these volumes, Breandán Ó Buachalla wrote: 'Not only did Keating successfully assimilate in one continuous narrative the various strata and components of traditional lore..., but he masterfully recast that narrative in an intelligible modern idiom.'

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