Middle Irish Totally Explained

Everything about Middle Irish totally explained

Middle Irish is the name given by historical philologists to the Goidelic language used from the 10th to 12th centuries; it's therefore a contemporary of late Old English and early Middle English. The modern Goidelic languages Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Manx are all descendants of Middle Irish.
At its height, Middle Irish was spoken throughout Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man; from Munster to the North Sea island of Inchcolm. Its geographical range made it the most widespread of all Insular languages before the late 12th century, when Middle English began to make inroads into Ireland, and many of the Celtic regions of northern and western Britain.
Few mediaeval European languages can rival the volume of literature extant in Middle Irish. Much of this survival is due to the tenacity of a few early modern Irish antiquarians, but the sheer volume of sagas, annals, hagiographies (etc) which survive shows how much confidence members of the mediaeval Gaelic learned orders had in their own vernacular. Almost all survives from Ireland, however very little from Scotland or Man. The Lebor Bretnach, the "Irish Nennius", survives only from manuscripts preserved in Ireland; however, Thomas Owen Clancy has recently argued that it was written in Scotland, at the monastery in Abernethy.

Further Information

Get more info on 'Middle Irish'.

External Link Exchanges

Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:

<a href="http://middle_irish.totallyexplained.com">Middle Irish Totally Explained</a>

Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned.