Kennedy: Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts

Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts

Title page of Kennedy's Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts

Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts

Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts

Title page of Kennedy's Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts

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Patrick Kennedy (1801-1873) was born in Co. Wexford, but moved to Dublin in 1823. He owned a bookshop at Angelsea Place and is accredited with reviving Irish folklore. In turn, he is associated with the Celtic literary renaissance.

Kennedy regularly contributed to Dublin University Magazine, and it this work that was published in the magazine in 1862 that led to publication of Legendary Fictions of The Irish Celts. He first published the Legends of Mount Leinster in 1855 under the pseudonym of Harrry Whitney.

The motivation behind writing the book was that Kennedy feared the tales he had heard as a child were being lost. He also created The Banks of the Boro (1867), The Fireside Stories of Ireland (1870), and The Bardic Stories of Ireland (1871).

In Legendary Fictions of Irish Celts, Kennedy offers a straight narrative of the stories rather than giving the flavour of the original Irish stories or the tone of their tellers. He does not cite specific sources or informants. The stories range from ghost stories and local legends to heroic adventures. There are specific reference to the witches and fairies of Ireland, as he re-tells many tales of changelings and fairy abductions.

The stories and legends in this volume are stories from your youth and in that sense are easy to relate to.