Discover Research Night Dublin 2014 Manuscript, Book & Print Cultures

Join Our Team at 8.40 pm

Practice with writing material old and new, & Enjoy the music!

Anna Chahoud is Professor of Latin at Trinity College. Her research concentrates on early Latin language and literature, Latin grammar and sociolinguistics, and the transmission of Latin texts from antiquity to the early modern period. Her major projects include an edition, with commentary, of the early Roman poet Gaius Lucilius, and a collection of fragmentary Republican Latin satire, invective and popular verse. Jürgen Uhlich lectures in Early Irish in the School of Languages, Literatures and Cultural Studies at Trinity College. His research expertise includes Early Irish texts and literature, Indo-European linguistics, Middle Irish, Ogam inscriptions, Old Irish historical phonology, Old Irish language. His projects include A Handbook of Early Old Irish and an edition of the text Fingal Rónáin ‘The “kin-slaying” of Rónán’. Caolan Mac an Aircinn is a Junior Sophister student of Ancient History and Archaeology and Latin at Trinity College. His interests are divided between Celtic culture – both modern and ancient – and the Eastern Mediterranean, particularly the civilisations of Greece, Egypt and Mesopotamia. He plays traditional Irish music on the fiddle and is an expert Irish calligrapher. William von Behr is in Senior Freshman year at Trinity College, completing a Single Honors Classics degree. His interests include both philology and Classical Greek & Latin epic poetry. Zoe Boland is in Senior Freshman year at Trinity College, completing a Single Honors Classics degree. She is fascinated with the ancient world and its languages and literatures. Alexandra Madela is a Senior Freshman student in Single Honors Classics, and a Foundation Scholar at Trinity College. She is interested in Greek and Latin philology, and proficient in prose and verse composition in the ancient languages. John Francis Martin is a Senior Freshman student in Classics at Trinity College. He is fascinated in all things inspired by the muses, chiefly in their musical and literate manifestations, in sacred texts, and in exploring the incredibly rich world of the ancients. Being a man from the country, he has a special place for Virgil and all who invoke its magic and poetry. Conor Phelan is in Senior Freshman year completing a Single Honors Classics degree in Trinity College. He is interested in Early and Medieaval Celtic and Classical philology. He plays traditional Irish music on the whistle and on the lute. Sana Sanai is a Junior Sophister student in Latin and English. She is most passionate about Classical literature and the history of the Persian Empire.

Discover Research Night Dublin 2014 Manuscript, Book & Print Cultures

Leave a Mark!

TCD MS 11174, fol. 167v, detail

© The Board of Trinity College Dublin

A Multimedia Workshop on Oral, Aural and Written Experience

What is the relationship between spoken and written communication? Are there things that one says but is not supposed (or prepared) to write down? How do terms of acceptability shift across time and cultures?

What is the relationship between formal and informal writing? How does handwriting adapt to context? How many variations are in between calligraphy – the art of beautiful writing – and casual scribbling? What is happening to these differences in the age of digital communication?

What is the relationship between sensorial experience and written record of it? How does, for example, notation affect the tradition of musical performance?

Long Room Hub, 8.40 pm

Discover Research Night Dublin 2014 Manuscript, Book & Print Cultures

St. Gallen (NE Switzerland), Stiftsbibliothek, MS 904, p. 204b, detail http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/de/csg/0904/204/x-large

In Ogam script: ᚛ᚂᚐᚈᚆᚓᚔᚏᚈ L A T H E I R T

An explanation of the expression is found in in “Cormac’s Glossary” §820 (Cormac mac Cuilennáin, bishop of Cashel (?) and king of Munster, †908): Laithirt .i. laith ort .i. laith ron-ort [.i.] ōl cormae, ‘i.e. [as if from] ‘ale’ + ‘killed’, i.e. ale has killed us, [i.e.] the drinking of ale’.

This note is entered in an Irish manuscript dated October 850–August 851. The main text is the Latin work on grammar by Priscian (c. 500 CE). The explanations (“glosses”) between the lines and in the margins are written in either Latin or Old Irish.

This 15th-century manuscript of Cicero’s De Officiis, a classical Latin treatise on moral obligations (!), contains one of the earliest records (1528) of the English four-letter word: f ***in Abbot The author of this comment elaborates on the left hand side, and gives a date for his note:

false are the works wich this Abbot writ in the abbie of Osney alias Godstow 1528

The glosses between the lines are explanations of the text entered by a different reader (note the different handwriting). Read the discussion @ https://solongasitswords.wordpress.com/tag/manuscripts/

Brasenose College MS 7, f. 62v

Discover Research Night Dublin 2014 Manuscript, Book & Print Cultures

Caolan Mac an Aircinn, Fiddle Irish traditional music is one of the oldest musical traditions in Europe. Although the style of playing was only finalised in the 1920s by musicians such as Michael Coleman, the tradition itself and many of its tunes date back to the seventeenth century, and the tradition has its roots in the older musical traditions of Gaelic Ireland. Although many people have published collections of Irish music, the earliest from the eighteenth century, Irish music remains largely an oral and aural tradition, with it being far more common to learn new tunes by listening to them being played, either live or on a recording, than sitting down and learning it from a book. Irish music also includes a lot of ornamentation which is added at the musician’s discretion throughout the tune, with the result that each musician plays a given tune differently, and it can be very hard therefore to accurately represent a tune on paper.

TCD MS 408, fol. 85, detail © The Board of Trinity College

http://digitalcollections.tcd.ie/home/index.php?DRIS_ID=MS408_001 Conor Phelan, Lute Caleno custureme is probably the earliest notation of any Irish tune. The song was known far beyond our shores. Shakespeare references it in Henry V, and Byrd wrote a keyboard setting of the tune. It remains hugely popular today, recognised as the ayre of ‘The Croppy Boy’. The title is probably a corruption of the Irish Cailín ó cois tSiúir mé, I am a girl from beside the river Suir, a tune which is mentioned in the poem Mealltar bean le beagán téad, a woman is wooed with a few strings, as the poet lists the names of well known Irish tunes. It has also been suggested the title is a corruption of the Latin Cailín custodi me, ‘O girl protect me.’ While Irish collections of lute music are rare, the Ballet lute book, in which this song occurs, and the Mynshall lute book being the two great Irish sources of lute music, the setting of Irish tunes to the lute is even more unusual. In Scotland, however, the practice of setting Gaelic harp tunes to the lute enjoyed tremendous popularity, with the likes of the Balcarres and Straloch manuscripts recording many fine traditional Scottish ayres.

The William Ballet lute book is late 16th-early 17th century, including many renaissance standards; Greensleevs, Robyn to the Green Wood gone and tunes by Dowland all feature. The book features tunes from within the English tradition of lute playing, and the inclusion of Caleno is unusual. There is no reference to lute playing from within the Gaelic sources, and we must presume it was confined to people from inside the Pale. The manuscript is today housed here in Trinity College.