Roger McClure: A NEW APPROACH TO EDITING TEXTS: THE ANNALS OF TIGERNACH
5pm, English Faculty Room GR05
The seminar will explore a new approach to editing a history text in the context of preparing a new edition of the Irish Annals of Tigernach. It will raise questions about the purposes of editions, whether they be of historical of literary texts. For example, is a ‘perfect’ edition simply a meaningless, or worse – misleading- construct?
The Annals of Tigernach recount the history of Ireland in the world, from the founding of Rome to the last quarter of the 12th century. The early classical world history is entirely in Latin with sparse Irish events interpolated in Irish. Gradually from the 6th century, the local Irish events begin to predominate and, by the early 8th century, the classical history peters out altogether. The annals are contained in two Bodleian MSS, one from the 11th century, which contains the earliest part of the world history, and a second from the 14th century which overlaps the first and
continues, with gaps, until it breaks off at the year 1178.
This interesting text provides much material for exploring issues concerned with editing texts and it is these which will be addressed in this informal seminar.
