Foras Feasa ar Éirinn – literally 'Foundation of Knowledge on Ireland', but most often known in English as 'The History of Ireland'[1] – is a narrative history of Ireland byGeoffrey Keating, written inIrish and completedc. 1634.[2]
It begins with a preface in which Keating defends the honour of Ireland against the denigrations of writers such asGiraldus Cambrensis,[3] followed by a narrative history in two parts: part one, from the creation of the world to the arrival of Christianity in the 5th century, and part two, from the 5th century to the coming of the Normans during the 12th century.[4]
It depicts Ireland as an autonomous, unitary kingdom of great antiquity. The early part of the work is largely mythical, depicting the history of Ireland as a succession of invasions and settlements, and derives primarily from medieval writings such as theLebor Gabála Érenn, theDindsenchas, royal genealogies and stories of heroic kings. The later part depicts the Normans as the latest of this series of settlers.[3] Keating, a Catholic priest ofHiberno-Norman ancestry, gave Irish people of both Gaelic and Norman ancestry credit for the development of the nation,[4] and emphasised the role of theChurch as a unifying factor inIrish culture.[3]
The work was extremely popular, surviving in a large number of manuscripts,[5] and its prose style became the standard followed by generations of Irish-language writers.[6] It has been said that it had "an influence on Irish language and literature as significant as Shakespeare's role in relation to English" .[7]
However, it was received critically from the start by some withSir Richard Cox (1650–1733), a Protestant lawyer of English descent, describing it in the 1680s as "an ill-digested heap of very silly fictions".[3] Modern scholars consider in the context of the antiquarian tendency ofRenaissance humanism, with Keating expounding on ancient Irish sources, whose authority he defends, to provide "an origin-legend forCounter-Reformation Catholic Ireland."[5]
