World of Geoffrey Keating

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Description
Geoffrey Keating's Foras Feasa ar Eirinn was among the most popular and influential histories ever written. It offered a sense of Ireland, of Irishness, and of Catholicism that had wide appeal. The work has long been valued for its mastery of the Irish language and its attractive literary style, yet its significance as history has been ignored. This innovative new book evaluates Keating's role as both historian and theologian. It provides an imaginative interdisciplinary analysis of the entire range of Keating's writing and of the social circumstances and intellectual influences that moulded his world. His theological works, Eochair sgiath an Aifrinn and Tri biorghaoithe an bhais, help clarify the context within which his history was written in a world where religion was not distinct from secular life. Historians and theologians, like all writers, reflect the beliefs and values of the world in which they live, and this pioneering study illuminates the interconnections between religion and history in early modern Ireland. The world of scribes, translators, publishers and readers of Keating's works are part of this historiographical assessment of how ideas were transmitted to later generations. Geoffrey Keating's intellectual legacy in influencing perceptions of Irishness has been profound, not least as the populariser of the idea of a 'special relationship' between Catholicism and Irishness. This is an important, original study of the cultural, social and intellectual world of Ireland's most influential seventeenth-century writer.

ISBN: 9781851825332
Classification: British & Irish history , Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700 , Biography: historical, political & military
Format: Hardback (234mm x 156mm x mm)
Pages: 264
Publish Date: 1-Jan-2000
Country of Publication: Ireland