Coire Sois, The Cauldron of Knowledge: A Companion to Early Irish Saga by Tomás Ó Cathasaigh (review)

This is a book that should be acquired by anyone who is concerned with the study of early Irish literature. After a Foreword by Declan Kiberd and Preface by the editor, Matthieu Boyd, the body of this volume is made up of thirty-one studies of Old and Middle Irish texts reprinted from earlier publications, all by Tomás Ó Cathasaigh. Boyd helpfully provides indications of further reading, in this way supplementing individual chapters that can date from as long ago as the mid-1970s. There is also a full index and combined bibliography.

This book is nonetheless not a simple guide to early Irish saga. Neither is it a festschrift, nor a swansong: Ó Cathasaigh remains active in his teaching and research as the Henry L. Shattuck Professor of Irish Studies at Harvard University. I would say this book owes its existence, firstly, to the preeminence of Ó Cathasaigh as a critic of early Irish literature and, secondly, to the nature of the discipline, early Celtic Studies, from which it emerges. The learned article has long held sway over the monograph in this field and, apart from one outstanding short monograph on Cormac Mac Airt, the best of Ó Cathasaigh’s thought on early Irish literature is found in specialist journals or collections on Irish/Celtic Studies. If one might question the value of reprinting works that are individually available in print, the question is answered by reading this book, in which the reader gains an impression of a concerted approach to a subject that is hard to recover from discrete reading of these items.

I can note only some important points in the space available. In his Introduction, Kiberd highlights Ó Cathasaigh’s formation in a wider critical milieu, and a key distinction of his approach from contemporaries in early Irish studies, namely, its focus on the extant text and diverse reference to theory. Re-reading Chapter 3 (‘Pagan Survivals’) is particularly enlightening in the light of these points. Ó Cathasaigh observes here that ‘the attempt to rediscover the process whereby a given work of literature came into being is a valid exercise, but it does not exhaust the critic’s task: there must also be elucidation and interpretation of the product itself’ (p. 46). In referencing T. P. Cross’s Motif Index, Ó Cathasaigh observes that it ‘can be useful even to those who do not subscribe to the theory on which it is based’ (p. 43). Such principles are well illustrated in the range of studies that follow. Students often make use of Ó Cathasaigh’s articles for his close readings of individual sagas. Reading these in the context of more theoretical reflections will hopefully inspire thought beyond the simple study of language or mythic structures.

This perhaps inspires my only, fairly minor, quibble, which is with the choice of title. The phrase coire sois (all one sees on the spine of the work) will defeat anyone without a knowledge of Irish. This is a book, however, which should have appeal well beyond that constituency. This is a very special book indeed, its sum greater than its already outstanding parts.