FRENCH WRITING IN IRELAND(The Tale of the Eagle Youth) stated that he “heard the
bones of this story from a nobleman who said he had
heard it told in French” and that he adapted it, adding
short verse passages. Such lack of precision illustrates
the difficulty of establishing sources for such texts in
Gaelic, whether Irish or (later) Scottish. The Irish Her-
cules, Stair Ercuil ocus a bhás, is a Gaelic adaptation
of an English version of Raoul Lefèvre’s Recueils des
Histoires de Troies (1464, French). Similarly, the Irish
version of the travels of Sir John Mandeville (original
in French) was translated in approximately 1475 from
an English version. Two Irish Charlemagne tales derive
not from a French chanson de geste but from a Latin
chronicle.
Tales drawn from the Arthurian cycle are relatively
few and of a late date compared to other European
languages. The incomplete translation of the Quest for
the Holy Grail (the Cistercian La Queste del Saint
Graal), entitled Lorgaireacht an tSoidhigh Naomhtha
by its editor, dates from the fourteenth or fifteenth
century. It is the only direct version of an Arthurian
tale in Irish, remaining close to the original(s)details
indicate that the author drew on more than one original,
as it differs in places from Malory’s Tale of the Sankg-
real and also from the French. Eachtra an Amadáin
Mhóir (The Story of the Great Fool) is a variation on
the story of Perceval. It may derive from or be a
response to the French originals and also contains ele-
ments of the tale of Gawain and the Green Knight.
Such motifs were no doubt easily adapted, given their
resemblance to some Ulster Cycle tales. The modern
debate on the Irish origins of medieval French Arthu-
rian myths is ongoing, but no awareness of such a
connection surfaces in the medieval Gaelic material.
Gawain appears in Gaelic tales and narrative poems
(or “lays”) as Sir Bhalbhuaidh or Uallabh, in Eachtra
an Mhadra Mhaoil (The Tale of the Crop-eared Dog),
in the Hebridean story Sir Uallabh O Còrn, and the
lay Am Bròn Binn (The Melodious Sorrow). The
fifteenth-century tale Céilí Iosgaide Léithe (Grey Thigh’s
Visit) is set in the framework of King Arthur and the
Round Table and features a King of Gascony. Bur-
lesque humor is an element in many of the above tales.
Determining French or English origins is difficult as
many of the surviving manuscripts and versions are
post medieval. The relation between manuscript and
oral versions has been the subject of scholarly debate
since Alan Bruford’s major study Gaelic Folktales and
Medieval Romances (1966).
Other material includes Eachtra Uilliam (the
French Guillaume de Palerme), translated from a
sixteenth-century English prose version, and a variation
on Orlando Furioso set in the Arthurian framework.
Late medieval Irish love poetry and love songs were
influenced by French courtly poetry, transmitted by
Anglo-Norman settlers according to Seán Ó Tuama’s
study (1962) classifying Irish folk songs under
French categories. However, the concept of “amour
courtois” used by Ó Tuama dates from the nineteenth-
century work of Gaston Paris, whose interpretation
has been revised by subsequent studies. Conclusive
textual proof that the folk songs contain specifically
French motifs as opposed to English or international
elements is lacking. Ó Tuama conceded this but main-
tained the French hypothesis in his 1988 work on
élite poetry, the Dánta Grádha (Love Poems). How-
ever, this corpus of texts is by predominantly post-
medieval authors, with two exceptions, the poetry of
one of whom, the Anglo-Norman third earl of Desmond,
Gearóid Iarla (c. 1360), shows no clear French char-
acteristics. Mícheál Mac Craith (1989) has demon-
strated that many of the Dánta Grádha are not love
poems in the proper sense and has traced some poems
to English models. A further instance of possible
French influence is the story of “the prince who
never slept,” found only in the Old French lay Tydorel
(c. 1220) and in oral tales collected in Irish-speaking
districts. The questions of which direction the tale
moved in or whether it descends from a common
Celtic archetype are unresolved.
ÉAMON Ó CIOSÁINReferences and Further Reading
Caerwyn Williams, J. E., and Patrick K. Ford. The Irish Literary
Tradition. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1992; also in
Irish version, Caerwyn Williams, J. E., and Máirín agus Ní
Mhuiríosa., Traidisiún Liteartha na nGael. Dublin: An
Clóchomhar, 1979.
Gowans, Linda. Bibliography of Gaelic Arthurian Literature.
http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/acpbibs/gowans.htm
Lorgaireacht an tSoidhigh Naomhtha, edited by S. Falconer.
Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1953.
Mac Craith, Mícheál. Lorg na hIasachta ar na Dánta Grá.
Dublin: An Clóchomhar, 1989.
Ó Doibhlin, B. “La France dans la littérature gaélique.” In The
Irish-French Connection, edited by Liam Swords. Paris: The
Irish College, 1978.
Ó Tuama, Seán. An Grá in Amhráin na nDaoine. Dublin: An
Clóchomhar, 1962.
Ó Tuama, Seán. An Grá I bhFilíocht na nUaisle. Dublin: An
Clóchomhar, 1988.
See also French Writing; Giraldus Cambrensis;
Records, AdministrativeFRENCH WRITING IN IRELAND
The earliest surviving French writing in Ireland dates
from the end of the twelfth century. In England, the
victory of William the Conqueror in 1066 had brought
the Norman dialect of French to the ruling classes,
and over the next century a distinctive Anglo-Norman