All posts by Niccolo Skill

Dating Medieval Irish Literature

The European Research Council has granted Professor David Stifter of Maynooth University a 1.8 million Euro grant for his project Chronologicon Hibernicum. The goal of the project is to more accurately date Irish texts varying from the 7th to 10th centuries. There are long-term goals as well, in that Professor Stifter, along with his team of five researchers, hopes to identify language trends so that future dating projects will be easier.

 

With these methods, identifying and dating other texts will be easier, as well. This project is focused only on Irish texts from the Medieval period, but the techniques developed will be applicable to texts outside this range of dates, as well as from other cultures. The texts in question are written in Old Irish, the complexity of which has made previous attempts at dating them difficult. Professor Stifter and his team hope to use modern methods and technologies to determine more accurate dates.

 

The full article is here, at the Irish Times website:

http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/treibh/groundbreaking-research-to-establish-chronology-of-medieval-irish-literature-1.2136957