Why read In Search of the Irish Dreamtime?

Book cover of In Search of the Irish Dreamtime: Archaeology and Early Irish Literature

Book description

Following his account of Irish origins as evidenced by archaeology, genetics and linguistics, J. P. Mallory returns to the subject to interrogate what he calls the `Irish Dreamtime': the native Irish retelling of their own origins, as related by medieval manuscripts. He attempts to explore the reality of this version…

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Why read it?

1 author picked In Search of the Irish Dreamtime as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Crawford Gribben

Author

I’m fascinated by the ways in which Christian communities remember pre-Christian cultures. In Beowulf, for example, historians in medieval England incorporated Christian themes into a story that had emerged in pagan times on the other side of the North Sea. In Ireland, Christian historians were much less interested in sanctifying their own island’s pre-Christian myth. Instead, they recorded all kinds of stories with little effort to make them fit within a Christian worldview as if they took delight in pagan culture for its own sake. But what is the historical value of these stories?

In this outstanding book, J.P.…

From Crawford's list on The best books on the history of Christianity in Ireland.