Old Irish summer schools, Mary Immaculate College, Limerick

Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick, will offer Summer Schools in
Old Irish, June–July 2009. The aim of the summer schools is to provide help to
students who wish to improve their knowledge of Old Irish but who are not in a
position to sign up for full-year courses. The dates are fixed to facilitate
students wishing to attend the Third International Táin Conference at Coleraine
(22nd-25th June 2009) and the Irish Conference of Medievalists (27th-30th June)
in Limerick.

Each course involves sixty hours’ contact time, spread over ten days, and
there are three levels: Beginners, Intermediate, and Advanced. Students choosing
the Intermediate and Advanced options will be asked to take a short test at the
beginning of the course so as to identify the best stream for their needs.

Beginners Course: 8–18th June 2009. This course is for those students with
little or no previous knowledge of Old Irish and gives the basic grammatical
structure of the language and some essential vocabulary. It will also provide
students with the opportunity of translating a variety of Old Irish texts,
concentrating on those that have historical implications.

Intermediate and Advanced: 6–17th July 2008. The Intermediate course will
cover the second half of Quin’s Old Irish Workbook and will also involve
reading the law-text Uraicecht na Ríar, which deals with the status and
functions of the filid or learned poets in Early Ireland. The Advanced course
will cover an introduction to Middle Irish grammar as well as reading extracts
from a variety of Old and Middle Irish texts such as Bethu Phádraig, Fingal
Ronáín, and Críth Gablach.

The cost of a course in Old Irish is €300 (£210 sterling; $500 Aus). The 2009
offerings will appear on the website in the course of November. In the interim,
queries can be addressed via e-mail to Catherine Swift
(Catherine.Swift@...; http://irishmedievalists.com). A video with
interviews from past students of the courses is available on the website.