Customer Reviews

Mythic Ireland

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Whether you're a tourist, a researcher, or just interested in Ireland's mythic and ancient sites, this is THE book to own. Dames includes documented history and archaeology, as well as rich anecdotes that make each site come alive on the page. I read and discard many books about Ireland and its history. This one is at the top of my list, to keep and re-read often.

I found this book to be fascinating, scholarly and helpful. It was one of two books I brought to Ireland as a pseudo-guide book. From it, I got a great tour of Lough Gur. For those interested in Celtic Ireland, it is a must read!

Michael Dames, a student of geography, archaeology and art, wrote this book as his own introduction (or perhaps explanation) of Ireland. Divided into five sections (one for each province of ancient Ireland), the book looks at the beliefs of Ireland, and its magical locations - those both ancient, and modern. As a treatise on Irish mythology this book is rather lacking, and as a travel book it is a complete disaster. But, as a book that combines the two, it is nothing short of a tour de force. It gives the reader ideas on how he or she can travel Ireland, touching the magic of its history, and the history of its magic. This is quite a fascinating book.

If you have a love of Ancient Ireland in fact and fable you must read this book.

Michael Dames sets out to tie the Irish landscape into the mythic tales of the Irish (mostly pre-Christian but also Christian as well). He paints a compelling image of Ireland's geography and living myth based on archaeology, and the like.

The book is organized into five parts, each part covering a province of traditional Ireland (Ulster, Munster, Leinster, Connacht, and Meath). Within each part, the geography is told in three chapters: an introduction chapter, a second chapter which contains a great deal more detail, and a concluding chapter which includes summaries of other interesting sites. In general, only a couple of closely located sites are covered in any detail for each province.

The book, however, requires that one has a reasonable grounding in Irish myth and legend. Dames does not retell the legends, but largely references them in his discussions of the land. If this is your first book on Irish myth, you are better off to set it aside for the time being, pick up Charles Squire's book, and read that first. However, once you have read that, I still recommend coming back to this book.

I would recommend this book to anyone interested in Irish myth, though I might recommend other books first to the beginner.

I picked up this book hoping to get a good solid introduction into the relation between Irish myths and Irish stone sites. Being someone with no prior knowledge of Irish myths but with an academic background in English, I find Michael Dame's style in this book totally confusing: the basic division into chapters about the Irish provinces is fine, what he does within these chapters, however, is often barely comprehensible! This is, in my opinion, due to the poor structuring of the many, many myths, their variations and correlations with myths of other cultures, and descriptions of sites. The wealth of interesting information is presented in a mostly incongruous sequence of paragraphs making it nearly impossible for the novice to grasp or remember. Dame's way of mentioning names as if the reader is already familiar with them may be fine with people who know their Irish mythology, to me as novice it only adds to my feelings of incomprehension and confusion. - This book could be so much better if it were only written better!