Sunday, March 12, 2006

Oprah Time


The Tain translated by Thomas Kinsella The book is is a translation of the Irish epic Tain Bo Cuailnge (in English known as the Cattle Raid of Cooley) which is a centre part of the Ulster Cycle.

Kinsella's translation is widely considered to be an accessible version of the tale. Kinsella's work is more focused than other works and I was inspired to hunt it out by reading Frank Delaney's novel Ireland which I reviewed
here and Early Irish Myths and Sagas translated by Jeffrey Gantz which has an eclectic mix of Irish and Welsh content.

In addition to Kinsella's translation there are ink prints throughout the book by Louis Le Brocquy add perfectly complement the text.

The New Hibernia Review has a description of how Le Brocquy's images work with Kinsella's words in the original editions published by the Dolmen Press, which gave the images much more prominence. Unfortunately these change hands for a good deal of money, so I have to make do with the Oxford University Press edition.