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IRLANDE

Towards a Hiberno-Latin Dictionary

One of the projects on which the newly established National Com- mittee for Greek and Latin Studies of the Royal Irish Academ y decided at its forst meeting on 27 May 1968 was the compilation o f a Dictionary of Insular Celtic Latin down to c . 1200 A. D., with special emphasis on Hibernian Latin, which accounts for the largest portio n of the relevant source material . The realisation of the plan was discus- sed at subsequent meetings ; contacts were established with Si r Roger MYNORS (Oxford), Mr . R. E. LATHAM (Public Record Office , London) and Professor J . H . BAXTER (Saint Andrews), and an informal agreement was made with the editors of the Medieval Latin Dictionary from British and Irish Sources, under the direction of R. E. LATHAM , now in process of publication, with a view to ensuring co-ordinatio n of efforts. Work on the Irish project will start as soon as the necessar y funds are available . This would seem to be the moment for surveying briefly the wor k done in the field of Insular Latin, especially Hiberno-Latin, studie s in Ireland during the last few decades. 249

A fundamental instrument for Hiberno-Latin studies is now avail- able in the form of a collection of manuscrits of Irish interest o n microfilm in the National Library of Ireland (Dublin), begun by it s then director, Dr . R. J. HAYES, and continued by his successor, Dr. P. HENCHY. The medieval material was systematically examined, mostly on the spot, by the present writer in the course of library tours throughout Great Britain, continental , and Nort h America during the years 1950 to 1970. The material, the filming o f which is still in progress, has been summarily catalogued in eleve n volumes by R. J. HAVES, DZanuscript Sources for the History of Irish Civilisation, Boston, Hall, 1965 ; the additional material from 1g65 onwards will be listed in a Supplement . More detailed descriptive catalogues of classified material (palaeography, hagiography, etc .) are planned by me . In the bibliographical survey which follows I have included som e work by Irish scholars published abroad, and some work by foreign scholars published in Ireland . The Latinity of Irish writers in general is discussed b y L. BIELER, Hibernian Latin, in Studies 43 (1954) 1, pp. 92-5. See also his articles The Island of Scholars, in Revue du Moyen Age Latin VIII (1952), pp. 213-34 ; Hibernian Latin and Patristics, in Texte und Untersuchungen, LXIII (1957), pp . 182-7 ; The Classics in Celtic Ireland, in Classical Influences on European Culture, A . D.500- 1500, ed. by R. R. BOLGAR, Cambridge University Press, 1971 , pp. 45-9, and his Irish Penitentials (Scriptores Latini Hiberniae. vol. V, see below, p. 000), pp. 27-47 . — An excellent survey of the study of classical influences on the pre-Norman Irish culture is W. B. STANFORD, Towards a History of Classcial Influences in Ireland , in Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, 70 C (1970), pp. 15-38. Two important articles tackle problems of the much discusse d Hisperica Famzn a P. GROSJEAN, ` Confusa Caligo ', in Celtica III (1956) 35-85, and M. WINTERBOTTOM, On the Hisperica Famina, in Celtica, VIII (1968) , pp . 126-39 . Virgilius Maro Grammaticus is the subject of a study b y P. GROSJEAN, Quelques Remarques sur Virgile le Grammairien, in Medieval Studies presented to Aubrey Gwynn, S . J., ed. by J. A. WATT and others, Dublin, Colm O . Lochlainn, 1961, pp . 393-408 .

r . The place of publication, unless indicated, is normally understood te be Dublin. 250

Linguistic features of a Latin text of (probably) Breton origi n are discussed by L. BIELER, Towards an Interpretation of the so-called Canones Wallici, in Medieval Studies presented to Aubrey Gwynn, Dublin, 1961, pp. 387-92. The lexicographer of Hibernian Latin will find ample material i n the introductions and indices of the new series of critically edite d texts, with English translation and notes, Scriptores Latini Hiberniae, published b