Working Group Coordinators
Síle de Cléir, University of Limerick
sile.decleir@ul.ie
Ailbhe Nic Giolla Chomhaill, University of Galway
Ailbhe.NicGiollaChomhaill@ollscoilnagaillimhe.ie
Our working group will explore hero tales and other heroic narrative material such as songs or lays, in Ireland and Scotland. The heroic story cycles form an important part of Irish and Scottish oral tradition, but because of their importance to the Irish and Scottish Gaelic languages, to date they have mainly been examined in the context of linguistics and Celtic history and archaeology. We propose instead to explore how hero tales and lays can shed light on the dynamic relationship between manuscript and oral traditions, and to look at Irish and Scottish heroic material in its cultural context: this would include a deeper exploration of narrators and their world, and the relationships between the narrated stories and the worldview or life experience of the communities in which they were told.