Dáithí Ó hÓgáin

In some ways quite satisfying but in others quite generic and I think some of the leaps of faith he makes are interesting and I'm not sure that some of the cognates he posits are quite true, he could be right but he didn't convince me in the text. The final chapter about the "defeat" of Paganism and the "Triumph of Christianity" glossed over many of the pagan holdovers and while most of the information that we have about paganism in Ireland is from Christian sources, Irish Christianity has a show more lot of pagan influences.

It's a bit dry and lacks a lot of detail about the practice of paganism in the pre-Christian period, I didn't really find anything more over what I already knew and honestly the writing style left me reading it in small chunks. show less

An interesting and worthwhile discussion, covering the peoples and cultures of Ireland from the stone age to the arrival of Christianity. Strongest where he teases out new information about the Druids from later Christian writings, and perhaps weakest where he wanders off into comparative folklore. Particularly recommended to anyone interested in the Irish Iron Age.

I stumbled upon this book in the Dickson Street Bookshop and it might have even been the first book I bought from them (which makes sense because it's bottomless and overwhelming if you don't walk in with a list!). I have always been drawn to anything Irish and this book was just another impulse buy that showed my cards. It's just an encyclopedia but it has all sorts of fun things about Ireland and the magical parts about it that are so interesting.

A very readable, thoughtful, and scholarly text.