Irish national identity in the early Middle Ages? with Dr Patrick Wadden

Who were the Scotti? The Féni? The Gaels? We were delighted to get Dr Patrick Wadden, from DCU and Belmont Abbey College, NC, USA on the podcast this week to explore the evidence for the existence of the Irish nation as a concept in the early medieval period. Dr Wadden guides us through a variety of texts, in both Latin and the vernacular, which depict the people of Ireland as a community of birth, language, law, religion and, sometimes, politics, from Columbanus, Adomnán and Auraicept na n-Éces the whole way through to Lebor gabála Érenn and the Sex Aetates Mundi. We discuss the role of the Irish language in expressions of Irish identity in the Middle Ages and Wadden reminds us to note the difference between modern scholars identifying something as being key to medieval identity and people at the time seeing it as significant.

Suggested reading:

Patrick Wadden, 'Church, Apostle and People in early Ireland', Medieval Worlds 5 (2017), pp. 143–169

Kane, Brendan, and Patrick Wadden, eds, An Eoraip: Gaelic Ireland in Medieval and Early Modern Europe (Leiden, 2025)

Wadden, P., ‘Theories of National Identity in Early Medieval Ireland’ https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:49c662b9-4e14-41b3-972e-ed8475f324c5

Regular episodes every two weeks (on a Friday)

Email: medievalirishhistory@gmail.com

Producer: Tiago Veloso Silva

Supported by the Arts & Humanities Institute, Maynooth University, the Dept of Early Irish, & Taighde Éireann/Research Ireland.

Views expressed are the speakers' own.

Logo design: Matheus de Paula Costa

Music: Lexin_Music