FORAS FEASA AR ÉIRINN
educated at home and on the continent, and both his
outlook and works are very much the products of his
background and time.
His family held extensive land holdings in the
vicinity of Cahir, and some of Céitinn’s poetic out-
put, panegyrics, and elegies, on the Butlers of Cahir
point to his having been educated by the Mac Craith
and other noted Munster poetic families such as Mac
Bruideadha. The young Céitinn was skilled in native
lore and language by the time he left to further his
education in the post-Tridentine seminaries of
Reims and Bordeaux. His formation in the ratio
studiorum developed by the Jesuits did much to
form his methodology and style, and the evidence
of his prose work point to extensive knowledge of
classical, theological, and contemporary scholarship
and a rhetorical mastery of homiletics and Christian
apologetics.
Céitinn’s early work in poetry and prose shows a
passionate concern for the welfare of the homeland.
The poem “Óm sgeol ar ArdMhagh Fáil, ní chodlaim
oíche” gives vent in biblical terms to his anger at the
devastation of Ireland after the defeat at Kinsale in
1601; the later dramatic lyric, “A bhean lán de
stuaim,” suggests perhaps a vocational crisis. While
his early religious prose works show a deep concern
to adapt the best of contemporary liturgical and
devotional works for the use of the faithful, the later
Trí Bior-Ghaoithe an Bháis shows a preoccupation
with the theme of death, influenced perhaps by his
experiences after his return to the home mission
around 1610. On completion in 1631 he would have
turned to his magnum opus, the For as Feasa, com-
pleted around 1634, in the compilation of which the
author has access to many printed sources and trav-
eled extensively to examine valuable manuscripts,
such as the Psalter of Cashel, in the possession of
the learned family of Ó Maolchonaire of Clare. The
work is not a chronicle but a synthetic, sympathetic
interpretation of the story of Ireland from the begin-
ning to the coming of the Anglo-Normans, divided
into two books dealing with the periods before and
after the coming of Christianity; a division that Ber-
nadette Cunningham points out (The World of Geof-
frey Keating) mirrors that of the Bible. Like the
Bible, too, Céitinn’s history is a compendium of
mythology, topography, hagiography, and chrono-
logy. He is the first to use the word “béaloideas,” (I, 48)
now meaning “folklore,” to describe the oral record
and tradition of the people, influenced, perhaps by
the developments in ecclesiastical historical meth-
odology. The contemporary Louvain school of Irish
history uses the more restrictive “béalphroceapta” to
describe the traditional teaching of the church.
Céitinn makes a spirited defense of his sources,
which shows his highly developed critical sense: “If
I make statements here concerning Niall Naoighi-
allach which the reader has not heard hitherto, let
him know that I have song or story to prove every
statement I advance here.” His defense too of the
account of the pre-Christian king Connor’s empathy
with the passion of Christ shows his knowledge and
critical use of Christian apologetics: “And if anyone
should deem it strange that Bacrach or any other
druid, being Pagan, should foretell the death of
Christ, how was it more fitting for the Sybils, who
were Pagans, to have foretold Christ before His birth
than for Bacrach or any of his kind? Hence the story
is not to be thus discredited.”
From the outset the work was enormously popular
and copiously copied down to the nineteenth century;
soon after its completion it was translated into English
and John Lynch published a Latin translation at St. Malo
in 1660. For all that it had its detractors from the
outset. Bishop John Roche, in a letter to Luke Wadding
in 1631, is dismissive of Céitinn as a historian: “One
Dr. Keating laboureth much in compiling Irish notes
towards a history in Irish. The man is very studious,
and yet I fear that if his work come to light it will need
an amendment of ill-warranted narrations: he could
help you to many curiosities of which you can make
better use than himself.” The criticism has continued:
Donnchadh Ó Corráin, contending that the author’s
post-Tridentine zeal for reform has considerable influ-
ence on his selective historical approach, dismissed his
critical assessment of the story of the King with the
horse’s ears (‘I think this part of the story is a romantic
tale rather than history’) as no more than an assessment
any schoolboy would be capable of. It should be noted,
however, that Céitinn’s inclusion of the tale here may
have something to do with the moral of this interna-
tional folktale “that truth will out,” in keeping with
that sense of poetic justice that informs his renderings
of other tales, such as “The Story of Deirdre” and “The
Death of Conraoi.” Breandán Ó Buachalla contends
that the popularity of the For as Feasa has more to do
with its style than its contents, but the contention that
Céitinn is “the father of Irish prose” has been contested
by Cainneach Ó Maonaigh, who illustrates, success-
fully, that Aodh Mac Aingil was master of a more pithy,
poetic style. Scholars as diverse as Aodh de Blácam,
Caerwyn Williams, and Declan Kiberd properly iden-
tify and stress the importance of Céitinn’s stated aim:
“I set forth to write the history of Ireland... because
I deemed it was not fitting that a country so honour-
able as Ireland, and races so noble as those who have
inhabited it, should go into oblivion, without mention
or narration being left of them.” In that, Céitinn reveals