Amra
Amrais the name of certain ancientIrishelegies or panegyrics on nativesaints.The best known isAmra Coluimb Chille(the song ofColumbkille).
Amra Coluim Chille[edit]
According to the traditional account theAmra Coluim Chillewas composed about the year 575 byDallán Forgaill,theChief Ollam of Irelandof that time, in gratitude for the services ofColumbain saving the bards from expulsion at the great assembly ofDruim Cettain that year.
"The Amra is not", saysWhitley Stokes,"as Professor Atkinson supposed, a fragment which indicates great antiquity."John Strachan,however, on linguistic grounds, assigns it in its present form to about the year 800 (Rev. Celt., XVII, 14).
Stokes, too, seems to favour this view (ibid., XX, 16). But Strachan adds "perhaps something more may be learned from a prolonged study of this and other such as the Amra Senain and the Amra Conroi." Dallan was the author of the former, "held in great repute", saysJohn Colgan,"on account of its gracefulness", and also of another Amra on St. Conall Cael ofInishkeelinDonegal,with whom he was buried in one grave.
Editions[edit]
TheAmra Coluim Chillewas printed with a translation by John O'Beirne Crowe in 1871 from the imperfect text in theLebor na hUidre;also in his edition of the "Liber Hymnorum"byRobert Atkinson,and in his "Goidelica" by Whitley Stokes,[1]from an imperfect text inTrinity College, Dublin.
TheBodleiantext (Rawlinson B. 502) was edited, with a translation, for the first time (Rev. Celt., vols. XX-XXI) by Stokes.
The standard modern edition of the Amra is the 2019 work by Jacopo Bisagni.[2]
References[edit]
- ^Goidelica. Old and Early-Middle-Irish Glosses, Prose and Verse. Edited by Whitley Stokes.2nd ed., London, 1872 (Google Books)
- ^[crit. ed.] [tr.] Bisagni, Jacopo, Amrae Coluimb Chille: a critical edition, Early Irish Text Series 1, Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 2019
External links[edit]
Sources[edit]
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain:Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Amra".Catholic Encyclopedia.New York: Robert Appleton Company.