Modern Interpretations of Irish Mythology

Modern versions of Irish mythological tales circulated widely from the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth, a period sometimes termed the Irish Revival, the Irish Literary Revival, or the Gaelic Revival. Many Irish legends had received literary treatments long before this era, but the Revival was distinctive as a phase in which a literary interest in native mythology moved beyond the largely antiquarian interest of the late eighteenth century. Critical interest in the literary treatment of Irish mythology is uneven. Works such as W. B. Yeats’s “The Wanderings of Oisin” have attracted extensive commentary, in contrast to a paucity of contemporary critical interest in narrative renderings of Irish legends by Eleanor Hull, John Todhunter, Douglas Hyde, Ella Young, or even Lady Gregory, despite the wide audience these works attracted in the early twentieth century. A significant gap in critical discourse on Irish mythology exists between modern scholarship on the manuscript sources and critical understanding of modern literary treatments of the events, characters, and locations that form the substance of Irish mythology. By attending to assessments and interpretations of some of the earliest versions of Irish legend, this article attempts to bridge this gap. The works included in General Overviews and Reference Works are directed to early Irish literature in the main, so as to provide students and researchers with avenues into the academic work conducted in this field. The article also includes a section on republications of narratives of Irish mythology from the Revival that had fallen out of print. Because of the extent of cross-over between authors and topics in the treatment of Irish mythology during the Revival and in later 20th-century texts, the structure of this article does not follow a pattern of individual authors. Instead, the article is ordered according to those characters in Irish mythology who have been the subjects of extensive modern treatments, the tales that have solicited greatest interest in modern Irish literature, and modern interpretations of gods and spirits from Irish mythology. The final section addresses mythology as it has been treated by 20th-century Irish female poets. Their interpretations carry significance for the power of male warriors in Irish mythology that modern Irish women writers confront, and for the divine and supernatural power of feminine figures within Irish mythology.