Some say the Milesians are a mythical people while others proclaim they are the ancestors of the Celts. Their story is one rich with intrigue and history. To settle in Ireland, they first had to overcome the supernatural race that occupied the land.

In transactions of the killkenny archaeological society volume 1-2 1853 , Eugene O kearney known forger writes that there exists a manuscript called "achievements of the seven celebrated irishman in the East under command of Royal champion Conall Kernach" he writes not about the manuscript but about an interperlation. Of the manuscript content all he says is that the interperlation occurs after Manannan mac Lir instructs Cuchulainn to use Gae Bolg crafted from a serpent that lived in Loch-na-niath near Manannans house in Armenia". It seems to be the origin for Lady Gregory mentioning it.

Do you think the manuscript exists or existed ? If nor was it just a forgery and how much damage do you think O'kearney did to irish folklore

What a profoundly interesting question! Thank you for bringing this to my attention Anon!

I generally don't deal with material after the 16th century asides from short dalliances here and there, so I had not heard of this O'Kearney before (for those curious, he appears to have used a pen name, Nicolás Ó Cernaigh, and this is the article anon is referring to).

I can't really say anything definitive (.i. beyond my vibes on the matter) in regards to the possibility if this manuscript existed or not. It is just very outside my wheelhouse. While some of the material O'Kearney puts forward in his note appears plausible based on some of the things I know about the Ulster Cycle in the 19th century (ex: the description of the gáe bolga sounds a lot like the 'stingray spear' idea that has been discussed by Edward Pettit's 'Cú Chulainn's gae bolga: from harpoon to stingray spear,' Studia Hibernica 41 (2015): 9-48) or earlier (the idea that Conall is operating outside Ireland kicks around in medieval Ireland, which I discussed in my MA thesis on the topic), it could simply be him incorporating actual folk material into his fiction to give it plausibility.

What I would say is that how he is representing buada here is pretty weird. Unless there was a significant change in how they were being imagined in the late Early Modern heroic cycles, it looks like a red flag to me. I can't think of any objects being ascribed buada, and the buada we do see are... not supernatural powers? I suppose some of them might be (the buada of seeing in TBDD for instance is pushing it), but a lot of them are just 'this person ROCKS at this thing'. It looks like he is interpreting it as a word like 'enchantment' or something, which is not what I would be used to with the medieval material. However, it is very possible for terms like this to experience shifts. If you are in the International Celtic Congress this year, you will hear me talk about clessa and how they change over time in the tradition.

Further, again, I am a medievalist so maybe this isn't as odd to a late early modernist, but this interpolation being in Latin seems super weird?

[A further detail, @irelandseyeonmythology just noted to me that it looks like there's a very basic translation issue. The title of the manuscript, according to this gentleman, was 'an t-oc(h)tar Gaedil', and somehow took that to mean seven and not eight. They similarly noted that the use of Latin seems really odd for the period.]

This sort of thing is, of course, the problem with forgers and other forms of academic dishonesty. The moment someone dabbles in it, every piece of their work is now under extreme scrutiny and can't receive the benefit of the doubt. While, personally, I would love for there to be an entire manuscript about Conall (though I would find it strange for there to be a single-text manuscript, unless that was a popular thing in the late Early Modern Irish period or something?), I would have to say that we should assume that this is a fiction. Especially as he (seems to?) be trying to use the interpolation as part of a defense against accusations that he was making things up.

I am, of course, not a folklorist. I'm a medievalist. So, I can't really say anything in regards to the damage he has done to Irish folklore. I would leave any true judgement to an actual folklorist, rather than myself who has no qualifications to make such a call. However, if my wholly unqualified opinion on this is of interest, based on my experience, there's a long list of people I would put ahead of him.

[Again, a further detail, @irelandseyeonmythology noted that it looks like this idea didn't have much traction, as there is only one reference to this article, found in vol. 15-16 of The Modern Language Review (p. 78)]

Anyways, all of that aside, thank you for asking me about this! What a lovely way to conclude my weekend. This was really interesting!

Sam Heughan Really Is a Viking

A spectacular horde of Viking treasure was unearthed in southwest Scotland, close to Sam’s birthplace, Dumfries and Galloway. Called “the Galloway Hoard,” the gold and silver pieces, discovered in 2014 and now cleaned-up and ready to be shown in museums, date from the 10th century when the Gall-Gaedil, a Scandinavian people who spoke Gaelic/Gaedhlig, dominated the area where, ten centuries later, Sam was born. Diana Gabaldon refers over and over to Jamie Fraser’s Viking stature—once again, looks like they cast the right actor to play him.