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A contribution to: Myth

Edited by John McKeane and Joanna Neilly

MHRA Working Papers in the Humanities 5

Modern Humanities Research Association

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Abstract.  The preface to Cáin Adomnáin is a Middle Irish narrative added to a seventh- century law designed, amongst other things, to protect women. In this essay I intend to analyse the way in which the author of the preface is using and adapting the various mythic narratives available to him, both secular and Christian, in order to create an allusively complex justification for upholding the law. This is done by means of a hagiographical narrative concerning the author of the law, Adomnán of Iona, in which he receives the law from heaven at the request of his mother. The role of Adomnán’s character has been interpreted as that of the poet-outsider or shaman and the preface has been viewed as an essentially secular narrative. I argue that this is only half of the picture and that, in fact, the author is using the secular myth in order to paint the relationship between Adomnán and his mother as that of Christ and Mary at the Passion but in such a way as to avoid the charge of blasphemy. This parallel would have been prompted by the growing popularity of the Virgin Mary in the twelfth century, an obvious model to endorse a law designed to protect women. This discussion forms part of my MPhil thesis looking at the construction of women and femininity throughout the preface to Cáin Adomnáin.

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