Rudolf Thurneysen and Die Irische Heldensage

TALK

As part of the Ulidia 7 conference, organised by the Celtic Studies department at the University of Ulster, Professor Bernhard Maier from the University of Tübingen will deliver a lecture, discussing the genesis of the publication of the first study of the tales of the Ulster cycle published in 1921 in Germany, and looking at the career of linguist and Celticist Rudolf Thurneysen, from his first appointment in Freiburg to his years in Bonn.

The lecture will be followed by the launch of the proceedings of the Ulidia 5: Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on the Ulster Cycle of Tales, edited by Laura Malone, David Stifter and Elizabeth Boyle (Curach Bhán Publications, 2024)

Ulidia 5 contains papers presented at the fifth international conference on the Ulster Cycle of tales, held at Maynooth in 2016. The Ulster Cycle is a wide-ranging corpus of medieval Irish literature featuring a cast of Ulster warriors, including Cú Chulainn, their king, Conchobar, and their Connacht rivals, led by Ailill and Maeve. The papers in this volume take various approaches to it – some chapters deal with individual tales, such as Táin Bó Cúailnge (The Cattle Raid of Cooley), others deal with individual characters, such as Deirdre or Cú Chulainn, while the rest examine aspects of language, historical context and literary themes. Contributors include leading scholars of medieval Irish literature, as well as some newer voices from across a range of academic disciplines.

Image credit: UB Basel, Portr BS Thurneysen R 1857, 4, printed with kind permission from University of Basel (Switzerland)

Wednesday 26 June, 4 pm | FREE