Betha Adamnáin: The Irish Life of Adamnán

Description

Máire Herbert, Pádraig Ó Riain (foilsithe den chéad uair / first published 1988)

xii + 110 pp. ISBN 1 870 16654 X

The vernacular Life of Adamnán of Iona, here edited by Máire Herbert and Pádraig Ó Riain, is one of the latest of the pre-Norman biographies of Irish saints. It was written about 950, probably at Kells in co. Meath, which had by then taken over from Iona as the leading Columban church. The Life addresses issues of obvious topical importance to this church, such as its relations with mostly local kings.