Latin

Latin. Although Ireland had not been wholly isolated from the Roman world, Latin came to Ireland with the 5th‐century Christianization. The earliest surviving Latin works written in Ireland are St Patrick's Confession and Letter to Coroticus. Recent research suggests that Patrick's apology, in the former, for his rusty Latin should not be taken at face value, the apparently awkward style concealing a close attention to the number of syllables in each phrase.

Writings in Latin by native Irishmen first appear in the 7th century. The Irish, unlike inhabitants of the former Roman empire, had to learn their Latin from scratch. Hence their writings reveal a particular interest in grammar, while their written Latin, though recognizably medieval in its grammar and syntax, is generally correct, with very little borrowing from Irish, other than in place and personal names. The same fascination with language, and particularly with Greek and Hebrew, led Irishmen in the early medieval period to employ what is sometimes called ‘Hisperic Latin’, distinguished by its exotic vocabulary, mainly Latinized forms of Greek words. Two products of this fascination with language are the Hisperica famina (Western Sayings), and the enigmatic writings of Virgilius Maro (fl. C.650), whose work is thought to parody the pedantry of contemporary grammarians. Saints' lives were mostly, though not always, written in Latin, beginning with Cogitosus's Life of Brigid (written c.680). Columbanus was the first Irish Latinist to write outside Ireland. Although he was probably not the author of the poems traditionally attributed to him, with their echoes of classical Latin verse, his five surviving letters reveal a good knowledge of patristic authors and a fine command of Latin. The Irish played a role in the revival of Latin learning that marked the reign of Charlemagne and his successors. Most influential was the philosopher and translator of Pseudo‐Dionysius, John Scottus Eriugena. Sedulius of Liége produced around 80 lively poems, displaying a knowledge of several classical authors, and other scattered poems by Irishmen survive in Carolingian manuscripts. Dicuil's De mensura orbis terrae (On the Measurement of the Earth) (c.825) describes voyages by Irish monks in the north Atlantic, while Virgil ( Fergal), bishop of Salzburg (d.784), has been credited with the influential Cosmography attributed to Aethicus Ister.

Latin writings by Irishmen tail off by the 11th century. After the partial colonization of the Anglo‐Normans, Latin writings, mostly the work of the settlers, offer isolated examples of particular genres. The intellectual life of the universities is reflected in the writings of Richard Fitzralph, in Maurice O'Fihelly's commentaries on Duns Scotus, and in the brief philosophical treatises of Peter of Ireland, who taught Thomas Aquinas at Naples. However, it is now suspected that William of Drogheda, author of Summa aurea (Golden Compilation), a casebook of ecclesiastical law, may not have been Irish. Richard de Ledrede, bishop of Ossory (1317–c.1361) left a collection of lively hymns as well as an account of his feud with the Kyteler family, while Simon Fitzsimon (Simeon Simionis) gives an account of his journey from Clonmel to the Holy Land. There are also some half‐dozen chronicles in Latin, notably those of John Clyn and the so‐called Annals of Multyfarnham.

Latin remained the language of learning and intellectual debate into the early modern period, being employed for example in the historical writings of Philip O'Sullivan Beare, John Lynch, and Richard Stanihurst. The controversies surrounding the Confederation of Kilkenny provoked a lively pamphlet war in Latin, while the Commentarius Rinuccianus, compiled by Richard O'Ferrall and Robert O'Connell, is an invaluable, if biased, source for the history of the confederation. Luke Wadding's Annales ordinis minorum (History of the Franciscan Order) (1625–54) and Scriptores ordinis minorum (Writers of the Franciscan Order) (1650) are still consulted by scholars. John Colgan's Acta sanctorum Hiberniae (Acts of the Saints of Ireland) (1645) and Trias thaumaturga (1647), Lives of Patrick, Brigid, and Columba, helped initiate modern hagiographical studies. Other important Latin works were the historical and bibliographical writings of Sir James Ware, and Roderick O'Flaherty's Ogygia, with its bizarre mixture of Irish and classical mythology.

During the 17th century Latin gradually gave way to English as the language of scholarship. Archbishop Ussher's vast output of scholarly works contained rather more Latin than English writings. In 1692, on the other hand, William Molyneux made a last‐minute decision to write his Dioptrica nova (New Optics) in English. Latin continued to dominate the curricula of schools, universities, and seminaries well into the 19th century, and was abandoned as the liturgical language of the Roman Catholic church only after the second Vatican Council. References by Edmund Campion, Richard Stanihurst, and several 16th‐ and 17th‐century visitors to Ireland to the use of an ungrammatical spoken Latin among the rural Irish must be viewed with scepticism, but should not be totally discounted.

Bibliography

Bieler, L. , ‘Hibernian Latin’, Studies, 43 (1954)
Lapidge, M., and and Sharpe, R. , A Bibliography of Celtic‐Latin Literature 400–1200 (1985)
Millett, B. , ‘Irish Literature in Latin 1550–1700’, in T. W. Moody et al. (eds.), New History of Ireland, iii (1991)

A. B. Scott