177
Mícheál Hoyne DOI: 10.4312/linguistica.63.1-2.177-196
Trinity College Dublin
mhoyne@tcd.ie
FINDING THE ‘RIGHT’ IRISH FOR THE NEW TESTAMENT:
REGISTER IN THE FIRST THREE PRINTED BOOKS IN IRISH, 
1567–1602*
1 INTRODUCTION
The Irish language was a comparative latecomer to print, though many Irish speakers 
would have encountered printed books in other languages prior to the appearance of the 
first Irish-language printed book in 1567.1 Efforts to translate the New Testament into 
Irish went back at least to 1563, when Queen Elizabeth I made funds available for the 
creation of an Irish font for that purpose; she was concerned to see the project succeed, 
and by 1567, was threatening to demand repayment if nothing was published (Cló 52). 
She would have to wait longer than she could have guessed to see the final product. 
The Irish translation of the New Testament (TN) was a natural Reformation project, 
justified by the desire to spread the Word of God in the vernacular, facilitated by the 
advent of printing technology, funded (at least initially) by the sovereign and designed 
to further the state religion (and with it the English state in Ireland). It was enabled, it 
appears, by an increase in lay literacy in the sixteenth century. Vernacular Irish learning 
in the sixteenth century was dominated by hereditary learned families of poets, histo-
rians and jurists; it is the literature they produced that we find in Irish manuscripts. TN 
was carried out by native speakers of Irish who for the most part were not professional 
men of letters, but who had nonetheless learned to read and write their own language 
and had the advantage of a university education. From 1592, they could also count on 
the institutional support of a native university, Queen Elizabeth’s College of the Most 
Holy and Undivided Trinity near Dublin. Aware of rarefied idioms of the language, and 
in a position to consult experts in them, the translators of the Irish New Testament made 
deliberate choices to cultivate an accessible, colloquial idiom. Embellishments such as 
alliteration, which is an extremely common feature of contemporary prose style, had to 
be foregone in rendering Scripture faithfully, but the resulting translation is nonetheless 
vivid and idiomatic. 
TN did not appear in a vacuum. In 1567, John Carswell’s translation of Knox’s 
Forme of Prayers and Ministrations of the Sacraments (FU) was printed in Edinburgh, 
* I am grateful to the two anonymous readers for generously suggesting improvements to this piece. I alone am 
responsible for the remaining errors and omissions.
1 Uilliam Mac an Leagha, for instance, who can hardly have been active after the first quarter of the sixteenth 
century, made an Irish-language translation of the first (1474) or second (1503) edition of Caxton’s The Recuyell 
of the Historyes of Troye (Quin 1939).
178
the first book printed in the Irish language. This translation was carried out entirely 
independently of Queen Elizabeth’s New Testament project, but it was certainly known 
to one of those involved, Seaán Ó Cearnaigh: he drew on FU in preparing his catechism 
(Aibidil), which, when printed four years later, became the first Irish-language book 
printed in Ireland and the first to use Elizabeth’s Irish font. In seeking to place the reg-
ister (by which I mean the variety of language appropriate to the particular situation 
and function) arrived at for the Irish New Testament in context then, we will examine 
in turn these three books. The central question is: How did those responsible arrive at 
a register they felt was appropriate for Irish in print and for these works in particular? 
What decisions did they make and what aspirations and limitations informed these de-
cisions? Discussions of register naturally will overlap somewhat with questions of style 
and translation technique. Finally, some observations will be made about the legacy of 
the register created for TN.
2 THE FIRST PRINTED BOOK IN IRISH
The first book printed in the Irish language was for the most part a translation of John 
Knox’s The Forme of Prayers and Ministrations of the Sacraments (1564) (Cló §3). It 
was printed in Edinburgh in 1567. The translator was John(e) Carswell (alias Seón (or 
Eóin) Carsuel), possibly a native of Kilmartin in Argyll, who was appointed bishop of 
the Isles in 1565. Carswell was aware he was breaking new ground in translating Knox 
into Irish and having it printed (FU ll 222–223). The second of the book’s two epistles 
addresses no less a readership than all Christendom but speaks especially to the people 
of Ireland and Scotland. In it Carswell makes a case for printing in Irish, adverting to 
the advantages of this technology:
ACHT ATĀ NĪ cheana, is mōr an leathtrom agas an uireasbhuidh atā riamh 
orainde, Gaoidhil Alban agus Ēireand, tar an gcuid eile don domhan, gan ar gcan-
amhna Gaoidheilge [l. gcanamhain Ghaoidheilge?] do chur a gcló riamh mar 
atāid a gcanamhna agas a dteangtha féin a gcló ag gach uile chinēl dhaoine oile 
sa domhan; agas atā uireasbhuidh is mó iná gach uireasbhuidh oraind, gan an 
Bīobla naomhtha do bheith a gcló Gaoidheilge againd, mar tā sé a gcló Laidne 
agas Bhērla, agas in gach teangaidh eile ō sin amach, agas fós gan seanchus ar 
sean nō ar sindsear do bheith mar an gcēdna a gcló againd riamh, acht gē tá cuid 
ēigin do tseanchus Ghaoidheal Alban agus Ēireand sgrīobhtha a leabhruibh lámh, 
agas a dtāmhlorgaibh fileadh agas ollamhan, agas a sleachtaibh suadh. Is mōr-
tsaothair sin rē sgrīobhadh do lāimh, ag fēchain an [l. na?] neithe buailtear sa chló 
ar aibrisge agas ar aithghiorra bhīos gach én-nī dhá mhēd dā chrīochnughadh leis. 
(FU ll 305–320)
[Great indeed is the disadvantage and want from which we, the Gaels of Scotland 
and Ireland, have ever suffered, beyond the rest of the world, in that our Gaelic 
language has never been printed as all other races of men in the world have their 
own languages and tongues in print; and we suffer from a greater want than any 
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other in that we have not the Holy Bible printed in Gaelic [lit. ‘in Irish(-language) 
print’] as it has been printed in Latin and English, and in all other tongues besides, 
and likewise in that the history of our ancestors has never been printed, although 
a certain amount of the history of the Gaels of Scotland and Ireland is written in 
manuscripts, and in the tabular staves of poets and chief bards, and in the tran-
scripts of the learned. It is great labour to write that by hand, when one considers 
what is printed in the press, how smartly and how quickly each work, however 
great, is completed thereby. (FU p. 179)]
Carswell’s humanism shines through here (Meek 1998: 50–51, 55–56): it is striking 
that he mentions the printing of Irish-language historical records almost in the same 
breath as the printing of scripture in Irish. There can be no doubt about Carswell’s 
familiarity with traditional manuscript culture. He goes on to condemn the produc-
tion – in preference to spiritual reading matter – of manuscripts of tales concerning 
the Tuatha Dé Danann, the sons of Milesius, and Fionn mac Cumhaill and his warriors 
(ll 324–328). This condemnation proves at least that he was aware of the kind of texts 
that were being copied in manuscript, but Carswell had clearly read them too: his own 
language is redolent of the kind of material we would expect to find in just such manu-
scripts in this period. His reference to the wax tablets of the poets and the summaries of 
scholars quoted above (sgríobhtha a [...] támhlorgaibh fileadh agus ollamhan agas a 
sleachtaibh suadh), for instance, echoes a formula in Acallam na Senórach, the Fenian 
meta-tale which gathered together tales concerning Fionn mac Cumhaill and his war-
riors (FU 124 n. 317).
Carswell wrote in a literary register of Early Modern Irish. This was the common 
property of those literate in the vernacular in Gaelic Ireland and Scotland, but it would 
no doubt have differed dramatically from his own speech. Linguistically, literary Ear-
ly Modern Irish is far more Irish than Scottish, but Carswell’s control of the literary 
register is impressive. There are only a few linguistic indications here and there of 
the translator’s Scottish origin, particularly in syntax (his failure to clearly distinguish 
present indicative and future forms, for instance) and lexicon (I bprionta 19–20). The 
orthography, morphology and syntax of FU does not differ very significantly from that 
of an accessible Early Modern Irish text.2 While some forms Carswell employed would 
not have met with the approval of Bardic grammarians (such as -déna as a dependent 
future stem corresponding to independent do-dhéna),3 the overall impression is of a 
high-register text: the first appearance of Irish in print did not represent a linguistic 
break with ‘manuscript Irish’. Though they have the appearance of being mere page-
fillers, Carswell cites lines from two Bardic poems on the final page of his work, which 
he would no doubt have sourced from manuscript (FU ll 3966–72, 3979–80).4 He even 
2 For Carswell’s language, see FU pp xi–lix and Ó Cuív (1977).
3 Carswell’s do-dhéna is for Classical (and historical) do-ghéna with the confusion, ubiquitous in this period, of 
lenited d and g. As another non-Classical feature, we may note that the preverb of the compound verb do-chluin/
ad-chluin ‘hears’ has been lost in future tense cluinfidh (3 sg. absolute) and cluinfeam (1 pl.) (FU p. xxxi).
4 The second quotation, which is preceded only by the printer’s colophon, was cleverly chosen: Grās Dé ’s na thós 
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composed his own short Bardic poem in the epistle to the reader and a metrical version 
of the Pater (ll 401–420, 3905–32) in a loose but perfectly acceptable form (ógláchas) 
of the Classical metre rannaigheacht mhór.5
Much has been made of the fact that in his short poem in the epistle to the reader, 
in which he speaks directly to the book, Carswell urges it to travel throughout Scotland 
and on to Ireland (ll 409–412). This has been taken to mean that Carswell intended his 
translation to be used in Ireland (see, for example, I bprionta 16–17, Ó Mainnín 1999: 
36–37). Carswell may well have hoped that this first printed book in Irish would be no-
ticed in Ireland and inspire reformers there to produce an equivalent or to advance the 
printing of Protestant literature in the Irish language further in some other way, but it is 
by no means certain that he expected his translation to be adopted wholesale outside of 
his own diocese. The fact that the book is composed in literary Early Modern Irish at all 
has been taken as further evidence of Carswell’s pan-Gaelic ambitions (for instance, see 
Mac Craith 1993: 143 and Mac Coinnich 2008: 323), but this raises the question: How 
significant was Carswell’s decision – if decision it was – to write in Early Modern Irish? 
What other registers were available to him in 1567? It is most unlikely that Carswell 
would have conceived of Scottish Gaelic as a separate language.6 The manuscripts 
containing tales of the Tuatha Dé and Fionn mac Cumhaill which Carswell had encoun-
tered would have been written in literary Early Modern Irish (or even in earlier forms 
of the language). Whatever the difficulties they posed, however many differences he 
might notice between his speech and the written word, for Carswell these manuscripts 
presumably provided the model for what a substantial piece of Gaelic prose looked 
like. Had Carswell wished to write in colloquial Scottish Gaelic, he would have had no 
atámuid, / nī ránuic sé fós fīnid, ‘We are still at the beginning of God’s grace; it has not reached [its] end yet’. It 
not only allows the text to conclude on an uplifting note; it also quite literally provides a finit for Carsuel’s text.
5 In Argyllshire tradition he is remembered for persecuting ‘the old order of bards and seanchaidhs’ as ‘stumbling-
blocks to the reformed faith’ (FU p. lxxxv). In what is probably a veiled reference to Bardic poets and other 
members of the traditional Gaelic learned orders (see below), Carswell refers to the special obligation of those 
learned in the correct idiom (ceart canamhna), composition (deachtadh) and pronunciation (labhairt) of the 
Irish language (Gaoidhealg) to further the Gospel instead of composing falsehoods against it (ll. 240–5, p. 178). 
On Carswell’s attitude to the traditional learned orders in FU, see Meek (1998: 47–51).
6 The reference to ar gcanamhna (apparently ‘our languages’, viz. Irish and Scottish) in the passage cited above 
is probably a typographical error for ar gcanamhain ‘our (shared) language’ and was translated accordingly by 
Angus Matheson in the cited translation. There is of course no linguistic definition of the distinction between 
a language and a dialect; it is ultimately a determination made by speech communities, bound up with socio-
linguistic factors (Greene 1972: 168). Though the idea was long dominant in scholarship on Irish and Scottish 
Gaelic that the language in Scotland did not significantly differ from that in Ireland until after the thirteenth 
century, there is little doubt that the Irish language began evolving in distinct ways in Scotland, however slowly, 
even before our written records begin (Greene 1972: 168–9; Ó Buachalla 2002). By the sixteenth century, the 
Irish spoken in the south-west of Ireland would have differed dramatically in phonology, morphology and 
syntax from that spoken in the Western Isles, but as Irish was the language of the majority of the country in this 
period and Gaelic the language of the majority in the Isles, a traveller moving from Carn Í Néid in Cork north 
to County Antrim and hence to Scotland would not have perceived a sudden linguistic breach as he moved 
from one region in Ireland to another or from Ireland to Scotland but rather dialects shading gradually one into 
one another across Gaeldom, as memorably described by Ó Cuív (1951: 47–9) (cf. Ó Buachalla 2002: 7; Grant 
2004: 94; Mac Coinnich 2008: 313).
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models to which to turn.7 Carswell, whether he was writing with an eye on Ireland or 
exclusively for the Isles, had little choice in this period and in his cultural area but to 
write in Irish, which meant writing in literary Early Modern Irish.
In his first epistle (the dedication to the earl of Argyll), his second epistle (his ad-
dress to the reader) and in an apologia towards the end of the book, Carswell is osten-
tatiously modest about his linguistic qualifications (FU pp lxxiv–lxxv; Meek 1998: 
52–53). Addressing his patron, he says his Irish (Gaoidhealg) is not very good (l. 228). 
He acknowledges his great deficiency (uireasbhuidh mhór) in Irish usage (a gcana-
mhain Ghaoidheilge) and in composition (a bfoirm mo dheachtaidh) (ll 229–231). But 
he makes an advantage of his supposedly rustic Irish: the Bible is plain in the original 
and the Word of God does not require ‘the fine false colour of the poets’ (dhath breadh-
dha brēgach na bfileadh) (ll 235–236; p. 178). This is probably more than a throwaway 
reference to gilding the lily: Carswell is likely referring here to the Classical register 
and the rhetorical tricks of the Bardic trade (see also fn. 5 above). He thus makes a 
virtue out of the simplicity (simplidheacht) of his work (ll 265–266). In the epistle to 
the general reader, he comes across a little more bullish: his translation has only such 
defects as might be found in any printed work in Latin or English, though he admits it 
might fall short measured against the standards of Bardic composition and correct us-
age (do rēir dheachtaidh nō cheirt na bfileadh), which are however alien to Scripture 
(ll 361–366; p. 180). He observes that there are few who have command of the correct 
idiom of the Irish language (ceart canamhna na Gaoidheilge) even in Ireland, except 
for a small number learned in praise-poetry and traditional lore (beagān d’aois eladhna 
mhaith rē dán agas rē seanchus) and some students (méid ēigin do mhacaibh maithe 
lēighind) (ll 366–370). It would be interesting to know if Carswell meant students in 
universities (at this period, this would mean universities outside of Ireland) or students 
in the schools of hereditary learned families in Ireland. Remarkably, Carswell claims 
not to have studied (nī dhearrna mé saothar ná foghluim) the Irish language ‘except 
as any one of the common people’ (acht amhāin mar gach nduine don phobal choit-
cheand) (ll 373–374; p. 180). This is a surprising claim given his attainments. If his 
statement is to be believed (and we must allow for a certain amount of exaggeration), 
Carswell may be implying that it was not unusual for the ‘ordinary person’ to learn 
to read and write Irish in this period. Carswell graduated with a BA and MA from St 
7 Carswell, of course, had to bear the expectations and abilities of potential readers in mind when making decisions 
regarding language, register and orthography. As regards orthography, he clearly anticipated members of the 
traditional learned families might read FU (Meek/Kirk 1975: 17; Meek 1998: 47, 59), and these readers would 
undoubtedly have expected Irish in traditional dress. Given his apparent Gaelicising inclination (discussed 
below), as well as his indebtedness to traditional manuscript literature, it seems unlikely that Carswell himself 
would have been attracted to the ‘phonetic’ spelling based on Scots seen – always in secretary script – in 
the famous Book of the Dean of Lismore (National Library of Scotland Adv. MS 72.1.37) and elsewhere. 
(Digital images of the manuscript are available from ISOS with Ronald Black’s catalogue description.) In any 
event, while this orthography was used on a limited scale to represent Gaelic names and short phrases in the 
likes of memorial inscriptions, legal documents and copies of Scots poetry, as well more extensively in copies 
of Classical Modern Irish and more vernacular Scottish poetry like the Book of the Dean (Meek 1989; Mac 
Coinnich 2008: 316, 325–8), I know of no evidence that it was ever employed for a work of prose like FU. On 
Carswell’s choice (if choice it was) not to adopt this orthography, see also Ó Mainnín (2002: 410–15) and Mac 
Coinnich (2008: 323–4, 328–9).
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Andrew’s in 1542 and 1544 respectively (pp lxxviii–lxxix). He is unlikely to have 
learnt to write Irish there, but to have pursued studies at this level he would already 
have learnt to read and write, presumably at home in Argyll, a Gaelic-speaking area. 
Carswell would hardly have had this book printed had he not counted on there being 
ministers (and others) capable of reading it (Bannerman 1983: 228, Meek 1998: 51). 
If his attainments reflect a more general level of Irish-language literacy in the region, 
the standard of education was high indeed, though Carswell’s anticipation of the criti-
cism of the poets reveals his awareness that the professional scholar of Irish might have 
turned his nose up at such ‘school Irish’.8
The first appearance of Irish in print was remarkably polished. Roman font was cho-
sen, probably because no Irish font was available at that time. FU is – to state the obvi-
ous – very ‘book-like’. It features catchwords, which are not found in Irish manuscripts 
before the seventeenth century and were probably introduced into the manuscript tradi-
tion from print (see McLaughlin 2021: 69–70). Carswell begins the epistle dedicatory 
with an explanation of the custom of dedicating a work to a worthy patron (ll 34–42), 
perhaps suggesting that this is something of a novelty in Irish, but the verbose paeon 
is thoroughly native in style and idiom (Meek 1998: 42–7). An interesting vernacular 
feature is the use of the demonstrative formula and (or ann) so síos (or sometimes just 
and so) in place of a simple title or heading, as in Foirm na nUrrnuidheadh [...] and so 
sīos on the titlepage: ‘This below is Foirm na nUrrnuidheadh [The Form of Prayers]’. 
The formula is very common in FU (see ll 398, 655, 741, 761, 809, 877 et passim),9 
and was likely borrowed from the paratext of Irish manuscripts, in which it was a com-
mon way of introducing a text.10
Another significant vernacular formula used by Carswell is X darab comhainm Y, ‘X 
whose cognomen/alternative name is Y’. He introduces himself on the title-page as M. 
Seon Carsuel, Ministir Eagluise Dé a gcrīochaibh Earra Gaoidheal, darab comh-ainm 
Easbug Inndseadh Gall, ‘Master John Carswell, Minister of the Church of God in the 
territory of Argyll, who is also known as Bishop of the Isles’. As a good Presbyterian, 
Carswell should have had no truck with bishops and certainly should have refused to 
take such a title upon himself, and indeed his decision to accept the bishopric from his 
patron was controversial (FU pp lxxxii–lxxxiv; I bprionta 15). The comhainm equation 
is a neat sleight of hand, making presbyter and bishop almost synonyms. The second 
8 Carswell, in using the phrase saothar/foghlaim do dhéanamh sa nGaoidheilg ‘to study Irish’, may have meant 
only formal education. He may have pursued private studies in the language and so be non-representative of 
the average lay person with some education in the language. If Carswell is modest about his own grasp of the 
Irish language, he makes clear in the apologia that the printer in Edinburgh, Robert Lekprevik, had no Irish (or 
Gaelic) whatsoever (ll 3939–43). On levels of literacy in the Highlands in the sixteenth century, see Bannerman 
(1983).
9 The first Bardic quotation on the final page is headed RAND. The normal meaning of rann in connection with 
poetry is ‘quatrain’, but here, as one and a half quatrains are cited, it must have the broader sense ‘citation’. This 
use of rann is met elsewhere as, for instance, in the sixteenth-century grammatical tracts (see, for example, IGT 
III 244 n. 23, 479 n. 23, 505 n. 5).
10 For examples, see Catha Cenel Eogain and so (RIA MS 23 P 2, f. 58v; 15th century); Fingal Cloinne Tanntail 
ann so sis (King’s Inns MS 12, 43c14; 15th century); Dinnshenchas Erenn ann so (RIA MS D ii 2, 1; 16th 
century). Images of the manuscripts are available from ISOS.
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instance of this formula on the titlepage is more intriguing: Do buaileadh so i gcló i 
nDún Edin, darab comh-ainm Dún Monaidh, ‘This was printed in Edinburgh, which 
is also known as Dún Monaidh’. I do not know what authority Carswell had for giving 
Dún Monaidh as an alternative name for Dún Éidin and I have no other example (see 
OG §15003). A Dún Monaidh situated in Scotland does occur in a text which Carswell 
probably read, Acallam na Senórach (Stokes 1900: 3090), but it is traditionally taken 
to be Dunstaffnage in Argyll (Ó Riain, Murray and Nic Chárthaigh 2020, 119, OG 
§15002; cf. O’Grady 1892: ii 180). Carswell can hardly have meant that Dunstaffnage 
and Edinburgh were the same place. It seems likely that Dún Monaidh, the name of 
Scotland’s royal seat in earlier literature (see O’Donovan 1842: 46–47, Lehmann 1964: 
ll 440–441), followed the kings of Scotland to Edinburgh: Dún Monaidh is mentioned 
as the contemporary residence of the Scottish king in another sixteenth-century text 
(O’Grady 1892: i 279, ii 318). In any event, this equation may be connected with an-
other curious statement on the titlepage: Carswell claims to have translated from Latin 
and English (arna dtarraing as Laidin agus as Gaill-Bhērla), though the evidence is 
that the translation was based on English sources only (FU p. lxviii; I bprionta 16). 
Thomson suggests ‘that the reference to Latin was intended to dispose his Highland 
readers to a more sympathetic attitude towards the book and its contents than if its ori-
gin were entirely Lowland and English’. We may speculate that this attitude could also 
have led him to further ‘Gaelicise’ Edinburgh/Dún Éidin on the titlepage by giving it 
an alternative Gaelic name from the distant past.
Carswell has been praised as a translator (I bprionta 18; Meek 1998: 55). His style 
is vigorous and thoroughly natural. He commonly uses strings of alliterating words, 
which are often more or less synonymous. Alliteration (marked by o here) is most pro-
nounced in the bombastic dedication to the earl of Argyll, which opens Don triath 
ochumhachtach ocheirtbhreathrach ochiūinbhriathrach [...] atā M. Séon Carsuel [...] 
ag oguidhe agas ag ogér-atach Dé go odīochra odūthrachtach [...], ‘For the powerful, 
right-judging, soft-spoken lord [...] Master John Carswell is [...] praying to and keenly 
imploring God intensely and fervently [...]’. This piling up of alliteration is common 
in Early Modern Irish prose texts, and was no doubt designed to appeal to the hono-
rand. Other portions of FU are much plainer. Carswell was sufficiently skilled and had 
enough common sense to modulate his style to accommodate different audiences: the 
dedication to the earl of Argyll is florid, while the catechism – which was designed for 
ministers to use in preparing youths for Communion – is written in a much sparer style 
(FU pp. lxix–lxxii; I prionta 18–19). As Thomson observes, ‘It seems clear from this 
that Carswell was fully aware of what was stylistically appropriate’ (FU p. lxxii; cf. 
Meek 1998: 53–54).
FU stands very comfortably on the threshold of the world of manuscript and print. 
As a printed book, it is well produced (something for which the printer must take some 
of the credit; Meek/Kirk 1975: 1). The style is native despite both the novel medium 
(the printed book) and novel text-types (the epistle dedicatory). Carswell was in a posi-
tion to judge what was appropriate – and feasible – in register and style given both his 
abilities and limitations and those of his intended readers in the Isles. Though he was 
184
obviously somewhat uncomfortable with the prospect of his Irish being criticised by the 
custodians of ‘correct’ Irish (the Bardic order), he provided a rationale and model for 
‘simple’ Irish in print that is consistent with his stated aims as a reformer and human-
ist. This literary register would be oriented towards – but might legitimately deviate 
from – more rarefied idioms of the language. On the whole, FU marked a self-assured 
beginning for Irish in print.
3 THE FIRST IRISH-LANGUAGE PRINTED BOOK IN IRELAND
The first item printed in Irish in Ireland was probably the broadside produced in Dublin 
in 1571, a copy of an apocalyptic religious poem by Pilib Ó hUiginn (d. 1487) (Cló 
§4, Aibidil 191–212). This broadside is associated with the printing of the first Irish-
language book in Ireland, Aibidil Gaoidheilge & Caiticiosma the same year (Cló §5). Ó 
hUiginn’s poem was no doubt sourced from a manuscript, though there is now only one 
extant manuscript earlier in date and it is not the source. The decision to print a Bardic 
poem is nowhere explained. It may be that it provided a text of reasonable length to 
serve as a trial-piece to test out the new Queen Elizabeth font, specially designed for 
printing the Irish language, and the printing operation set up in Dublin. The poem itself 
contains no sentiments liable to offend reformers. We can speculate too that, just as 
Carswell was comfortable citing Bardic religious poetry and using a Classical metre in 
FU, the reformers in Dublin may have wished to lay claim to what was acceptable of 
the earlier vernacular literature and associate themselves in the process with the most 
prestigious form of Irish-language literature, Bardic poetry.11
A translation of the catechism found in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer in 
English as revised in 1559 makes up the bulk of the Aibidil. The main text is preceded 
by an epistle to the reader and a short guide to Irish spelling. It is followed by some 
prayers, translations of articles of religion and quotations from the Bible (presumably 
ad hoc translations as there was no Irish-language translation of the whole Bible avail-
able) (Aibidil 11–16). The translator was Seaán Ó Cearnaigh, a native of Co. Sligo, 
graduate of Cambridge and minister in the reformed church. He was one of those in-
volved in the efforts to translate the New Testament and was probably based in Dublin 
when the Aibidil appeared (pp 3–4).
Linguistically, the Aibidil (like FU) is noteworthy for the first known appearance 
in the Irish language of many words. Some of these ‘may have been current in admin-
istrative and ecclesiastical circles in Dublin’ (p. 42).12 Ó Cearnaigh presumably trusted 
his readers would understand them.13 Like Carswell, he did not belong to a hereditary 
11 The broadside is heading Duan ann so [...] (a heading also found in the copy in National Library of Scotland 
MS Adv. 72.2.14, AD 1584). The demonstrative formula is also used in introducing sections in the Aibidil (see 
pp 58 and 68). By TN, it has disappeared altogether in Protestant publications. It reappears in the first Catholic 
printed book in Irish, Giolla Brighde Ó hEódhasa’s catechism in 1611 (second edition 1614) (Cló §§13 and 16), 
but subsequent Catholic publications drop it.
12 Cf. Meek’s praise (1998: 55) of FU: ‘the liturgical and canonical sections of the book are an astonishing 
achievement, mainly because they contain, in one sweep, the Gaelic vocabulary for the worship and ministry of 
the Protestant church on Knox’s model’.
13 I have argued elsewhere that Ó Cearnaigh may have designed his book to be used primarily by schoolteachers 
185
learned family,14 yet in spelling, morphology and syntax the Aibidil adheres for the 
most part to good literary usage – though not without a few forms that the Bardic 
grammarian would likely have felt to be ‘howlers’.15 For instance, the negative of 3 
sing. future indicative do-ghéna ‘will do’ occurs as ní ghéna or ní dhíoghna (Aibidil 
38; cf. dependent -déna in Carswell, discussed above). Both ní ghéna and ní dhíoghna 
may well have represented forms current in Ó Cearnaigh’s dialect of Irish at this time, 
but neither of them would have passed muster with Bardic grammarians, who would 
only have allowed ní dhiongna, ní dhingnea or ní dhingéna. In fact, Ó Cearnaigh’s ní 
dhíoghna is probably a more ‘phonetic’ rendering of ‘correct’ ní dhiongna, as he would 
have pronounced it (O’Rahilly 1941: xxi; Ó hUiginn 1994: 591). Though literary Early 
Modern Irish would have been closer to Ó Cearnaigh’s own speech than it would have 
been to Carswell’s, there would still have been a gulf between his own dialect and even 
the more accessible of literary registers. Most obviously, the standard orthography had 
not been revised in any significant way to take account of far-reaching phonological 
changes which would have occurred three centuries or more earlier (Ó Cuív 1951: 
40–44; McManus 1994: 350–3, 355–356).16 In syntax conservatism cannot be ruled 
out either: for instance, in all of the Protestant books published in the seventeenth cen-
tury, I have not observed any exception to the rule that a (non-relative) verb will agree 
with a plural nominal subject in number,17 but this concordance obligation was already 
obsolescent at the beginning of the Early Modern Irish period (McManus 1994: 420). 
Ó Cearnaigh certainly had some exposure to formal, traditional Irish-language 
teaching which was heavily influenced by the Bardic schools. The brief guide to Irish 
spelling at the beginning of the book is steeped in Bardic learning (Aibidil 58–67 and the 
relevant textual notes; Hoyne 2019: 214–220), ending with an appeal to seek instruc-
tion from the poets (fághbhadh fóghluim óna fileaghuibh) on matters not dealt with, for 
‘it belongs to their art to explicate [these things] intellectually and knowledgeably and 
not to mine’ (oír is lé na n-ealádhain bheanas sin do thrāchdadh go hínntleachdach 
éolusách). Though this remark is limited to circumscribing the matter covered in his 
following the 1570 ‘act for the erection of free schools’. The Aibidil would form a kind of primer to introduce 
students to Irish letters (Hoyne 2019: 219).
14 His was a clerical family and we would therefore expect a high level of literacy among them.
15 Unlike Carswell, however, Ó Cearnaigh retains the preverb in forms of do-chluin where appropriate.
16 In 1639, the Jesuit Theobald Stapleton set out to print Irish in roman font using a more phonetic version of Irish 
orthography in a catechism printed in Brussels which anticipated many of the spelling reforms formalised in 
the twentieth century (Hoyne 2019: 221). He did not find any imitators. Stapleton was extremely critical of the 
native learned classes for obscuring the language (Ó hUiginn 2013: 103–4, Hoyne 2019: 224).
17 E.g. Do thuigeadar [3 pl. preterite of tuigidh] na breitheamhain [nom. pl. of breitheamh ‘judge’] agas na 
rīghthe [nom. pl. of rí ‘king’; Classical nom. pl. rígh] deaghchreidmheacha do bhī ar Chloind Israhēl an nī-se 
do labhramar romhaind, ‘The pious judges and kings who were set over the children of Israel understood what 
we have mentioned above’ (FU ll 83–5, p. 174) and ní bhfuilid [3 pl. dependent present indicative, substantive 
verb] anmanna [nom. pl. ainm ‘name’] oghuimh aca innte, ‘they do not Ogamic have names in it’ (Aibidil 
58–9). The plural verb may also be used when the subject is grammatically singular but semantically plural: 
adubhradar [3 pl. preterite of a-deir ‘says’] Cland [nom. sg.] Israhēl go minic [...], ‘the children of Israel often 
said’ (FU l. 212, p. 177); Créúd do rinneadar [3 pl. preterite of do-ní ‘does’] do lucht [nom. sg.] gabhāla in tan-
sin ar do shon? ‘What did your godparents do then on your behalf?’ (Aibidil 70–1).
186
brief ‘alphabet’ of the Irish language, Ó Cearnaigh’s attitude towards the Bardic order 
and its hegemony in linguistic matters is not unlike Carswell’s: on the one hand, he 
acknowledges that the poets are the supreme authorities of the Irish language; on the 
other, he excuses himself from having to imitate them too closely. As with Carswell, 
the possibility at least existed that the first printed books in Irish might adhere strictly 
to the Classical idiom; Carswell openly rejects this option, and Ó Cearnaigh sidesteps 
it. Though Ó Cearnaigh clearly respected the Bardic order, he does not follow its usage 
slavishly. In his ‘alphabet’ he departs from normal Bardic teaching in several ways. 
For example, though he retains the traditional Bardic names for letters, the alphabet 
follows the standard Latin ordering (A ailm, B beth, C coll) rather than the Bardic (B 
beth L luis N nion), a reorganisation also seen in the primer compiled by his Cambridge 
contemporary, William Nugent, perhaps on the occasion of a visit by Queen Elizabeth 
to Cambridge in 1564 (Aibidil 14 n. 44; Hoyne 2019: 215). Ó Cearnaigh brings in com-
parisons to other linguistic traditions also, as when he writes, Mar atá dioptóngón ag 
an ngrēgach & ág in laidnoír, atád coimhcheanguil ag an ngaeidhelg, ‘As the Greek 
[scholar] and the Latinist have a diphthong, Irish has coimhcheangail’ (Aibidil 62–63, 
Hoyne 2019: 219–220).18
This international perspective reflects not only his own university education but 
also a sense, again shared with Carswell, that Irish was joining other European lan-
guages in print. Of course, Irish had made its debut in print four years earlier – and Ó 
Cearnaigh certainly knew about and even borrowed material from FU, as was proven 
by de Bhaldraithe (1958) – but he nowhere mentions his predecessor. As has already 
been noted, FU was printed in roman font. Ó Cearnaigh emphasises the fact that Irish 
now has its ‘own special font like every other language in Christendom’ (in teanguidh 
ghóidhelge do chur ann a cló dhíleas fén mar tá gach teanguidh ele sa Chríosdui-
gheachd) (Aibidil 66–67).19 For Ó Cearnaigh, Irish was not truly ‘in print’ unless in 
Irish font. The font in question of course had been paid for by Queen Elizabeth back 
in 1563, four years before Carswell’s book appeared. Ó Cearnaigh may have desired to 
magnify the significance of the first appearance of an Irish book in irish font; it helped 
him downplay – or rather ignore – the fact that dithering in Dublin had allowed a rival 
Protestant tradition to steal a march, but there may genuinely have been a sense that 
Irish in print should look like Irish did in manuscript, that there should be a continuity 
from minuscule to font.20
In style, however, Ó Cearnaigh is far less ‘literary’ than Carswell, and the Aibidil 
does not show the influence of vernacular literature in any obvious way. Ó Cearn-
aigh’s style has been called ‘inelegant’, though Williams feels that this assessment is 
rather unfair (I bprionta 26). Whatever about his qualities as a translator and writer, Ó 
Cearnaigh had less scope than Carswell to show off different styles. He occasionally 
embellishes with some alliteration, as when he addresses the reader with Ag sin agud 
18 The usual Bardic term for ‘diphthong’ is deafhoghar, not coimhcheangal.
19 The final page of the book consists of errata, another first in Irish-language printing.
20 For Queen Elizabeth’s irish font, see McGuinne (2010: 4–22) and Cló 55–7.
187
a lēughthōir céd otairthi & otoírrcheas na hóibre omaithi omór-shaothair úd, atám do 
othairring & do othriall chugad lé fada, ‘There you have, o reader, the first fruits and 
progeny of that good and very laborious work which I have been producing and devis-
ing for you for a long time’ (Aibidil 12, 52–53), but on the whole the style is plain and 
the translation workmanlike. We have seen that the creation of the Queen Elizabeth 
font was to have facilitated the publication of the New Testament in Irish. Ó Cearn-
aigh’s name is associated with the early stages of that project. In assessing him as a 
translator and stylist in the Aibidil, we should bear in mind that he may already have 
begun to work on translating the Bible and may have been honing a method and style 
of translation that prioritised fidelity to the original rather than naturalness or flair. How 
much of Ó Cearnaigh remains in the New Testament as eventually published is impos-
sible to know for sure.21
4 THE NEW TESTAMENT (1602)
Elizabeth I’s desire to have the New Testament printed in Irish had obviously not been 
met by the publication of the Aibidil, though at least Ó Cearnaigh had made a start in 
Irish printing in Dublin and made good her investment in an irish font. The authorities 
printed a proclamation in English and Irish against the Earl of Tyrone, Aodh Ó Néill, 
in 1595, but as no copy of the Irish text is known to survive nothing can be said of it 
(Cló §9). 
The story of TN has been told elsewhere (Cló §10, I bprionta 27–34, Ó Fearghail 
2004).22 Unlike its two predecessors, FU and the Aibidil, this publication was a team 
effort. The translation was begun by Nicholas Walsh (d. 1585), a graduate of Cam-
bridge, from 1571 chancellor of St Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin and from 1578 bishop 
of Ossory, and Seaán Ó Cearnaigh of the Aibidil, who was treasurer of St Patrick’s 
from 1570. It is presumed Walsh’s connection with the translation ceased when he was 
appointed bishop; Ó Cearnaigh died around 1587. The translation project may have 
started in earnest in the 1570s, but the work does not seem to have advanced very far 
before the foundation by Elizabeth of Trinity College in 1592. There the project was 
overseen by Uilliam Ó Domhnaill, alias William Daniel, from Co. Kilkenny, one of 
the first three Scholars of the College and from 1593 a Fellow. Other leading figures in 
the translation were Fear gan Ainm Ó Domhnalláin (d. 1609), a native of Galway and 
scion of a Bardic family and yet another graduate of Cambridge, from 1595 archbishop 
of Tuam, and Maoilín Óg Mac Bruaideadha, a practising Bardic praise-poet from Co. 
Clare. Somewhat later, and perhaps in place of Ó Domhnalláin and Mac Bruaideadha, 
Ó Domhnaill could call upon the assistance of Domhnall Óg Ó hUiginn, who may have 
been a native of Cill Chluana (Kilclooney) in Co. Galway; the Uí Uiginn were a distin-
guished family of Bardic poets and they kept a school at Cill Chluana. The Gospels had 
been rendered into Irish and as far as Luke 6 had already been printed on the grounds 
21 His translations from the Bible at the end of the Aibidil (152–5) differ significantly in wording from those 
eventually published in TN.
22 There is no academic edition of any of the Irish-language Protestant works published in the seventeenth century. 
A copy of TN can be accessed from EEBO and a digital transcript from HIC.
188
of Trinity College by 1597. A quarrel with the original printer contributed to delays. 
Queen Elizabeth may have seen an ‘advance copy’ shortly before her death, but TN 
was not actually published until James VI of Scotland had become James I of England. 
The translation itself was carried out from the Greek Textus Receptus, but the 
translators had the benefit of Latin and English translations also. Both Williams 
(I bprionta 34) and Ó Fearghail praise the easy and idiomatic style of the resulting 
text. Ó Fearghail instances the translation of 1 Tim. 3:8, an exhortation that deacons 
not be ‘double-tongued’: gan a dteanguidh dho bheith liom leat, which could fairly 
literally be rendered ‘that their tongue not be with-me with-you’. Teanga liom leat 
is still a current idiom meaning ‘double-talk’. It is striking to see such a colloquial 
expression in this context. Though idiomatic, like the Aibidil, there is nothing evoca-
tive of ‘manuscript Irish’ here.
When it came to finding the ‘right’ register, all of those involved in making the trans-
lation were native speakers of the language, and besides this natural fluency, Walsh, Ó 
Domhnalláin and Ó Domhnaill had pastoral experience in Irish-speaking communities: 
we can expect that they had a good idea of the linguistic capacity of ministers and their 
congregations. From 1592 the Irish New Testament project had the expertise of an ac-
complished member of the poetic guild on staff. Carswell and Ó Cearnaigh must have 
had some exposure to Bardic teaching, as we have seen, but to our knowledge there was 
no direct involvement by a member of the native learned classes in their work. While 
none of the other members of the project were professional men of Irish letters, at least 
so far as we know, all but Ó Domhnaill (and before him Walsh) probably grew up in 
a Bardic milieu. The driving force behind the translation and publication, however, re-
mained a ‘layman’, and Ó Domhnaill makes special mention of the linguistic qualifica-
tions of Mac Bruaideadha and Ó hUiginn in his address to the reader at the beginning 
of TN: he refers to Mac Bruaideadha as duine iúlmhar sa teanguidh ghaoidheilge sa 
gColáisde nuádh láimh ré Baile atha Cliáth, ‘a knowledgeable man in the Irish language 
in the new college near Dublin’, and he acknowledges Ó hUiginn’s work in writing out 
the text after the Gospels do réir óghuim & cirt na gáoidheilge, ‘according to the orthog-
raphy and correct usage of Irish’. This may suggest underlying drafts in less ‘correct’ 
Irish which were then given a grammatical and orthographical touch-up by Ó hUiginn. 
If our Ó hUiginn is the ‘Donell Oge O Higgen of Kilclony’ mentioned in a pardon of 
1590, he probably did not himself practise the family trade, for he is there described as a 
‘gentleman’ (not a ‘rhymer’ or poet) (Knott 1922/26: ii 312), but he was clearly regarded 
by Ó Domhnaill as an authority on correct orthography and usage, and it would not be 
surprising if he had indeed received training in the Classical idiom in his family’s Bardic 
school at Cill Chluana, even if he did not go on to be a professional panegyrist.
There was some danger inherent in involving a member of the Bardic order or 
someone expert in the Classical idiom in the work of translation: in many respects 
the Classical idiom was more conservative than most varieties of literary prose (cf. Ó 
hUiginn 2013: 100). To take one instance: An bhfuil tú sgáoilti ó mhnáoi? ná hiárr 
bean (1 Cor. 7: 27), ‘Art thou loosed from a wife? Seek not a wife’. The dat./acc. sg. 
form mnáoi, triggered by and lenited after the dative preposition ó ‘from’, is quite 
189
different from the nominative singular form bean ‘wife’. In the example above, bean 
is the direct object of the 2 sing. imperative verb íarr. In the Classical register, a direct 
object in the singular which has an accusative form distinct from its nominative should 
take this distinctive accusative form when it comes immediately after the verb that 
governs it: thus mhnáoi and not bean would be ‘correct’ after íarr. To use the nomina-
tive singular bean here in a Bardic poem would be to incur the fault of ainréim ‘non-
inflection’ (IGT V §16). But the very fact that a Bardic grammarian needed to point 
this out – in a tract found already in the fourteenth century – proves that this rule was 
obsolete in the spoken language.23 *Ná hiárr mhnáoi would have been arcane in 1602, 
and the translators of TN were targeting their work at a broader readership than those 
who had mastered the Classical idiom.24
Be that as it may, there are a few forms which might raise eyebrows. In Mt 21:28 
we find Agus ar bhfreagra dhó-san a dubhairt sé: ní dhiongan, ‘And he answering said: 
I will not’. Diongnan is a synthetic dependent 1 sing. future indicative form of do-ní 
‘does’. One wonders how colloquial this form was. It is certainly not a form a Bardic 
grammarian could quarrel with (IGT III §1).25 The dependent future stem diongn- seen 
in ní dhiongnan is used ‘correctly’ throughout the Gospels (e.g. Mt. 19:18), alongside 
the more innovative form dén- (Mt. 5:27) (already met with in FU and the Aibidil). In 
the Epistles and Apocalypse, however, we also find diongn- generalised as a dependent 
stem outside of the future, as in 1 sg. present indicative ní dhiongnuim ‘I do not’ (Rm. 
7:19) for expected ní dhéanaim (seen in Rm. 1:9 and 9:1, as well as in Mt. 21:27), and 1 
sing. present subjunctive dá ndiongna mé ‘if I do’ (1 Cor. 14:14).26 These are certainly 
not forms a Bardic grammarian would have approved of. It is interesting to note that 
the generalised use of the diongn- occurs only in sections translated and transcribed 
after 1597.27 Diongn- here probably represented spoken d´i:n, as found today in Con-
nacht Irish (cf. Ó Cearnaigh’s díoghn-),28 and we likely have to do here with a feature 
23 This particular example is found in that portion translated after 1597, but note, from the earlier translated portion, 
do bhéra bean eile (Mt. 19:9), ‘he shall marry another’, lit. ‘he will take another wife’, where bean occurs 
immediately after do-bhéra (3 sing. future indicative of do-bheir). In Carswell, the direct object is sometimes 
distinctively accusative, but these instances appear to be set phrases; one anomalous instance in verse (nid from 
nead ‘nest’) is probably nom. pl. for acc. pl. rather than acc. sing. (FU xxi–xxii).
24 It was arcane in 1616 when the Franciscan Flaithrí Ó Maoil Chonaire, a member of a famous poetic family, 
published his Desiderius in Louvain (Cló §17). Ó Maoil Chonaire marks the direct object of the verb accusative 
several times (O’Rahilly 1941: xxiv), as in claoiim an mnaoi (l. 1371) for colloquial *claoiim an bhean ‘I 
overthrow the woman’.
25 It may be significant that ní dhiongnan in Mt. 19:18 is a responsive. Even in Modern Irish dialects which do 
not normally use synthetic verbal forms, synthetic forms can be found as responsives (Greene 1972a: 62–5). 
On the use of the analytic construction (with an independent subject pronoun) in preference to the synthetic 
construction in the New Testament, see Ó hUiginn (2013: 101–2).
26 See also Rm. 13:10; 1 Cor. 4:7, 13:4–6; 2 Cor. 9:2, 10:13, 11:12, 11:18; 2 Ts. 3:4; 1 Tm. 2:7; 2 Tm. 1:3; Jam. 
3:6; Ap. 9:19.
27 As I have noted this feature before, I will mention here that future indicative forms of do-chluin are found 
without its preverb, where in conservative Irish it should be present, in Luke 12:32 and later (John 5:25, 7:51, 
16:13; Acts 17:32, 25:22, 28:26; Apoc. 18:22), though the preverb occurs in Luke 21:9, Acts 21:22 and Apoc. 
11:12. The preverb is found in Mt. 13:14, 24:6 and Mark 13:17.
28 The generalised use of diongn- is also found in Ó Maoil Chonaire’s Desiderius (O’Rahilly 1941: xxi). For the 
190
of Domhnall Óg Ó hUiginn’s dialect of Irish. This would explain its sudden appearance 
in those portions not translated and transcribed by 1597. Ó Corráin (2013: 90–92) has 
already noted changes in syntax between the two phases of translation. The construc-
tions exemplified by atá [it-is] arna [after-its] sgríobhadh [writing], ‘it is written’ (Mt. 
4:7) and atá [it-is] sgríobhtha [written] (Mt. 4:10) occur more or less an equal number 
of times in the pre-1597 portion, but the second variant dominates in the rest of TN to 
the near total exclusion of the first. In the early seventeenth-century grammar of Irish 
associated with the Franciscans, Rudimenta Grammaticae Hibernicae, which reflects 
to a significant degree the teaching of the Bardic schools, the construction with the 
verbal adjective (sgríobhtha) is said to be disapproved of by the learned, which we 
can take to mean representatives of the traditional learned class (Mac Aogáin 1968: ll 
1765–75; Ó Corráin 2013: 91 n. 10). A full linguistic analysis of the Irish New Testa-
ment might reveal other such ‘textual heteroglosses’ between those sections translated 
and transcribed by 1597 and those which followed.29
Slight as these indicators are the impression gained is that the New Testament trans-
lation became somewhat more colloquial – and more regional – in register after 1597. 
It seems unlikely that a decision was made in this regard. It is much more likely that 
this had to do with the fact that Maoilín Óg Mac Bruaideadha and Fear gan Ainm Ó 
Domhnalláin were no longer on hand to check – whether consciously or unconsciously 
– the drift towards more colloquial and regional forms. When Ó Domhnaill took up 
the task of translating the Book of Common Prayer into Irish in 1605, he was granted 
leave from Trinity and went ‘into the province of Connaught to have the assistance of 
such as he shall think fit there’ (McNeill 1932: 376; Cló §11). Mac Bruaideadha had 
died in 1602. It has been suggested that Ó Domhnaill went to Connacht to consult 
Fear gan Ainm Ó Domhnalláin, who had been translating the Book of Common Prayer 
before he became archbishop of Tuam in 1595 (I bprionta 35; Cló 63–64). Perhaps 
significantly, when LUC appeared in 1608 (available on EEBO, HIC), the atá arna sg-
ríobhadh construction was back with a vengeance,30 but the generalised use of diongn- 
still occurs.31 Once again, a fuller linguistic analysis of both TN and LUC would be 
required to take these observations any further, but it would be tempting to draw some 
conclusions about the preferences of Ó Domhnalláin and Mac Bruaideadha from this 
data: we might speculate that Ó Domhnalláin (and perhaps also Mac Bruaideadha) had 
a soft spot for the more literary atá arna sgríobhadh type construction (though not to 
the exclusion of the more colloquial atá sgríobhtha variant), while it was the influ-
ence of Mac Bruaideadha, a Bardic poet and Munsterman, which checked the spread 
of the regional use of diongn- as a dependent stem outside of the future. In any event, 
these forms and the textual issues they raise highlight the fact that the register arrived 
position today, see Ó hUiginn (1994: 591).
29 These linguistic points need not necessarily contradict Williams’ impression that the translation as a whole is 
consistent (I bprionta 32).
30 In the entire TN after the Gospels, there is only one example of the atá arna sgríobhadh type. On pp iv–xiv of 
LUC (a translation of the Act of Uniformity and a proclamation of James VI/I) there are six examples.
31 See, for instance, ní dhiongnann (LUC p. 14).
191
at for the TN was not a matter only of decisions made by the translators headed by Ó 
Domhnaill. It was also the product of the available pool of talent with their own speech 
varieties, linguistic preferences and abilities in their native language.
5 RESPONSES TO THE REGISTER OF THE IRISH NEW TESTAMENT
By 1608, Irish Anglicans had brought out a catechism, the New Testament and the 
Book of Common Prayer in the vernacular. Three years later, the Irish Franciscans 
in Antwerp would respond with their own catechism (Cló §13, Ó Fearghail 1976). 
Whereas the ‘authors’ most associated with the early decades of Protestant printing in 
Irish (Carswell, Ó Cearnaigh, Ó Domhnaill) were ‘outsiders’, bearing surnames not 
associated with the production of traditional Irish literature in manuscripts and be-
longing to families with no hereditary connection to the world of Irish letters, the two 
figures associated with the early years of Counter-Reformation printing in Irish (Giolla 
Brighde Ó hEódhasa and Flaithrí Ó Maoil Chonaire), first in Antwerp and then in Lou-
vain, were members of distinguished Bardic families. Giolla Brighde Ó hEódhasa was 
a master Bardic poet as well as a member of the Order of Friars Minor. His catechism, 
first published in 1611, alternates prose and Classical verse. Ó hEódhasa justifies using 
a simple style in this catechism but, even as he does so, he advertises his qualifications 
in the Bardic art and ‘correct’ Irish in a poem written in strict verse (dán díreach): the 
unmistakable message (directed at his fellow elite men of letters) is that he could make 
more extensive use of the prestigious idiom, if he chose to (Ó hUiginn 2013: 97–98). 
The register of the early Franciscan publications is noticeably less colloquial than that 
of their confessional rivals and predecessors in print (Ó hUiginn 2013: 98–103), and 
the Franciscans were undoubtedly aware of this. In 1618, Aodh Mac Aingil published a 
treatise on the sacrament of penance in Louvain (Cló §18). Mac Aingil’s preface gives 
us some sense of how the Franciscans viewed the Protestant publications from Dublin, 
not only in doctrinal matters but also as regards ‘correctness’ of language. Mac Aingil 
calls the Book of Common Prayer Leabhar Iffrinn Eiriceachda ‘Heretical Book of 
Hell’ (playing on Leabhar Aifrinn ‘Missal’) (Ó Maonaigh 1952: l. 87). Of the ‘heretics’ 
in Ireland he writes: Do chuirsead an leabhar-sa & mórán don Bhīobla a nGaoidh-
lig, & as lór a neimhchirti sgrīobhthar iad, ‘They translated this book and much of 
the Bible into Irish, and they are written most incorrectly’ (ll 88–89).32 He therefore 
feels justified in writing his Counter-Reformation treatise go simplídhe go neimhcheart 
Ghaoidhilge ‘simply, in incorrect Irish’ (l. 93).33 Be that as it may, Mac Aingil’s Irish 
is less colloquial than that of the TN: the 3 pl. preterite ending -s(e)ad in do chuirsead 
‘they put’, for instance, was a purely literary morpheme. In FU, the Aibidil and TN this 
ending does not occur; normal -(e)adar is employed (as in do chuireadar, Mt. 21:7). 
Given the presence of Maoilín Óg Mac Bruaideadha on the staff of the Irish New Testa-
ment project, we cannot imagine that those responsible for TN were unaware of such 
32 The use of the passive here (sgríobhthar) strikes me as odd. One might have expected a perfect construction like 
*is lór a neimhchirte atáid siad sgríobhtha/arna sgríobhadh.
33 Mac Aingil was happy enough to quote from TN elsewhere in his book, though without giving his source (I 
bprionta 41).
192
literary forms; they deliberately chose to cultivate a more colloquial register. Among 
the Franciscans meanwhile the spirit of the professional literary men of the old order 
was dominant, even if certain concessions had to be made to popular usage to better 
pursue the goals of the Counter-Reformation project. 
How did Protestants greet TN? No contemporary response is recorded. James VI/I 
felt it necessary to command the use of both the New Testament and the Book of Com-
mon Prayer among Irish-speaking congregations in 1624, an order which implies that 
TN was not being widely used at that point (I bprionta 39). The print run was only 
500, but copies could still be had in 1628, when twelve were donated for the use of 
Irish-speaking students in Trinity (Stubbs 1889: 58; I bprionta 34). TN seems to have 
excited little enthusiasm, even among the Protestant minority in the country. This is 
probably – at least partially – a symptom of the general failure of the Reformation in 
Ireland and the failure of the Church of Ireland to commit to the vernacular of the ma-
jority population of the island. It may also be connected with the wider decline of the 
Irish language in this period: as the seventeenth century wore on, the order of hereditary 
families which had dominated Irish learning since the thirteenth century collapsed, and 
Irish ceased to be a language of public life. Carswell, Ó Cearnaigh and Ó Domhnaill 
were university men who, though not brought up in a Bardic milieu, had learned to 
read and write Irish and had some contact with traditional Irish learning. They could 
make careers in the established church, and it was an advantage in that career to have 
fluent Irish. In contrast, the English scholar Narcissus Marsh, shortly after being ap-
pointed provost of Trinity in 1679, found that, though most of the ‘native’ Scholars in 
the College could speak Irish, none could read or write it (Ó Moghráin 1945: 94–95). 
They obviously felt no need to acquire this skill, as Irish was no longer a language for 
promotion or preferment in the Church of Ireland.
When the 1602 New Testament was reprinted in 1681 at the behest of Robert Boyle, 
an Irish aristocrat in London (and not himself an Irish-speaker), some – mostly cosmet-
ic – revisions were felt necessary, including the substitution of more common words 
and expressions (Cló §49; I bprionta 78). As would be the case with the Irish Old Testa-
ment, which was finally printed in 1685, having languished in manuscript for more than 
four decades (Cló §51), it seems there was little demand for copies. The vernacular reg-
ister developed for the Irish New Testament by 1602 had been outpaced by far-reaching 
sociolinguistic changes before it had a chance to attain anything like canonical status 
or exert long-term influence on the development of the Irish language. A new edition 
of the Irish Bible (including TN) in roman font for the Scottish Highlands in 1690 
included a glossary for those unfamiliar with ‘the refined idiom of Ireland’ (snasdha 
chanamhain na Héire) (Cló §56). The so-called ‘Highland Bible’ was not well received 
or well understood in the Highlands (I bprionta 101–102; cf. Meek 1998: 58–62). The 
gap between Irish and Scottish Gaelic, which Carswell had perceived as a matter of 
register, had become one of language. In Ireland, there was in effect no readership for a 
(Protestant) Bible in the vernacular. In Scotland, the demand existed, but it was demand 
for a Bible in Scottish Gaelic. 
193
Abbreviations
Aibidil = Ó CUÍV, Brian (1994) Aibidil Gaoidheilge & Caiticiosma: Seaán Ó Cear-
naigh’s Irish Primer of Religion published in 1571. Dublin: Dublin Institute for 
Advanced Studies.
Cló = SHARPE, Richard/Mícheál HOYNE (2020) Clóliosta: printing in the Irish lan-
guage, 1571–1871 – an attempt at narrative bibliography. Dublin: Dublin Institute 
for Advanced Studies.
eDIL = Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language. dil.ie [accessed on 3 March 2022].
EEBO = Early English Books Online. proquest.com/eebo [accessed on 3 March 2022].
FU = THOMSON, R. L. (1970) Foirm na n-Urrnuidheadh: John Carswell’s Gaelic 
translation of the Book of Common Order. Edinburgh: Scottish Gaelic Texts Society.
HIC = Historical Irish Corpus/Corpas Stairiúil na Gaeilge 1600–1926. corpas.ria.ie 
[accessed on 3 March 2022].
I bprionta = WILLIAMS, Nicholas (1986) I bprionta i leabhar: na Protastúin agus 
prós na Gaeilge 1567–1724. Dublin: An Clóchomhar.
IGT = BERGIN, Osborn ‘Irish Grammatical Tracts’, supplements to Ériu 8 (1916), 
Ériu 9 (1921–3), Ériu 10 (1926–8), Ériu 14 (1946), Ériu 17 (1955).
ISOS = Irish Script on Screen. isos.dias.ie [accessed on 3 March 2022].
LUC = Leabhar na nUrnaightheadh gComhchoidchiond agus Mheinisdraldachda na 
Sacrameinteadh [...] (1608). Dublin: Seón Francke.
OG = HOGAN, Edmund/Donnchadh Ó CORRÁIN, Onomasticon Goedelicum. 3 
March 2022. dias.ie/celt/celt-publications-2/onomasticon-goedelicum.
TN = Tiomna Nuadh ar dTighearna agus ar Slanaightheora Iosa Criosd [...] (1602). 
Dublin: Seón Francke.
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Abstract
FINDING THE ‘RIGHT’ IRISH FOR THE NEW TESTAMENT: REGISTER IN 
THE FIRST THREE PRINTED BOOKS IN IRISH, 1567–1602
An Irish translation of the New Testament was published in Dublin in 1602. This publi-
cation, and the translation work which underlay it, did not appear in a vacuum: two ear-
lier printed books in Irish had paved the way, viz. John Carswell’s translation of Knox’s 
Forme of Prayer and Ministrations of the Sacraments, published in Edinburgh in 1567, 
and Seaán Ó Cearnaigh’s primer of the Irish language and catechism translation, pub-
lished in Dublin in 1571. This paper seeks to shed light on the process by which an ap-
propriate register was arrived at for Protestant printing in Irish, and in particular for the 
New Testament, through an examination of some of the linguistic and stylistic features 
of these texts, with regard both to decisions made by the individual translators and to 
196
sociolinguistic factors which may have limited their room to manoeuvre. These factors 
include contemporary conceptions of and attitudes to different language varieties, the 
lack of alternative models, and the nature and level of education received by individual 
translators. This paper builds upon the pioneering research of Ailbhe Ó Corráin (2013) 
to show that linguistically that portion of the Irish New Testament completed after 1597 
has a more colloquial and dialectal quality than that which preceded it. This is tenta-
tively connected with specific changes in the team responsible.
Keywords: Early Modern Irish, translation, register, dialect, literacy
Povzetek
ISKANJE ‘PRAVE’ IRŠČINE ZA NOVO ZAVEZO: JEZIKOVNI REGISTER V 
PRVIH TREH TISKANIH KNJIGAH V IRŠČINI, 1567–1602
Irski prevod Nove zaveze je izšel v Dublinu leta 1602. Ta objava in prevajalsko delo, 
ki jo je omogočilo, se nista pojavila v vakuumu. Pot sta tlakovali dve zgodnejši tiskani 
knjigi v irščini, in sicer prevod Knoxovega dela Forme of Prayer and Ministrations of 
the Sacraments, ki ga je pripravil John Carswell in je izšel v Edinburgu leta 1567, in 
knjiga, ki vsebuje osnove irskega jezika in prevod katekizma izpod peresa Seaána Ó 
Cearnaigha, objavljena v Dublinu leta 1571. V prispevku poskušamo osvetliti proces 
izbire registra, ustreznega za protestantsko tiskano knjigo v irščini in še posebej za 
Novo zavezo. Pri tem proučujemo nekatere jezikovne in slogovne značilnosti obravna-
vanih besedil, tako z ozirom na odločitve posameznih prevajalcev kot glede na socio-
lingvistične dejavnike, ki so te odločitve utegnile omejevati. Ti dejavniki vključujejo 
sočasna pojmovanja o različnih jezikovnih variantah, pomanjkanje alternativnih mode-
lov ter vrsto in stopnjo izobrazbe posameznih prevajalcev. Članek izhaja iz pionirskih 
raziskav, ki jih je opravil Ailbhe Ó Corráin (2013), in skuša pokazati, da je v jezi-
kovnem pogledu narava dela irske Nove zaveze, ki je bil dokončan po letu 1597, bolj 
pogovorna in narečna v primerjavi s predhodnim delom. Domnevamo, da bi to lahko 
bilo povezano s posebnostmi skupine prevajalcev, odgovorne za novejši del prevoda.
Ključne besede: zgodnja moderna irščina, prevajanje, register, narečje, pismenost