CLASSICAL ASSOCIATION OF IRELAND Teachers were paid a modest sum, usually in kind, and bramble and sorrel leaves were used as a rudimentary form of ink. Leather, paper and slate were the copybooks of the day. As a true Rebel, it pains me to admit that Kerry was the centre of Classical learning in Ireland at that time, particularly Faha, where Latin, Greek and Hebrew were taught. By 1782 the Penal Laws had relaxed and hedge schools moved indoors. Catherine Ware was up next with the very entertaining ‘“To sage debate are summoned all the Peers…” Eutropius’ War Council’. This was an interactive, audienceparticipation invective of 399AD! Claudian wrote the poem against the Eastern Roman Emperor Eutropius and it centred around a council of war disguised as a dinner party. We learned that the personification of bravery is gluttony, and cooks and pimps rise high. The audience participation bit was the enjoyable slinging of insults: “Grave robber, Gallows-meat, False swearer, Cheat, Pimp…”! Last up was Gerry McCarthy, who spoke about Dante Alighieri. This talk was inspired by a trip to Florence and a fortunate rest under a statue of the great man, born here in 1265AD. Dante met his muse and love Beatrice when he was only nine! As a forerunner to his famous Divine Comedy he wrote love poems about Beatrice for the Society of Love. Beatrice died aged twenty-three: perhaps that is fortunate, for we might have had a corpus of love literature equal to Shakespeare’s sonnets but no Divine Comedy. Dante had a disagreement with Pope Boniface VIII, who convicted him on false charges, and Dante left Florence, never to return. The Comedy, a satire on the world, begins in misery and ends in happiness, and incorporates real people, usually those whom Dante disliked. Virgil is his guide through regions of Hell. It always pays to know someone with an exit strategy in a place like that; he got Aeneas out before, so he had a mental map the second time around! Finally, Cork Branch would like to thank Ms Christine Shine for her stalwart service as Treasurer. Christine has been doing the job for more years than she would care to admit. She decided it was time to put away the ledger and calculator, and retires safe in the knowledge that the accounts will stand up to the closest scrutiny, such was her attention to detail. Thank you for the years of service, Christine, and enjoy not having to balance the books anymore! J. O’Donoghue 10
May 2018
CAI LIMERICK The gloomy weather of Spring was brightened by Branch activities, with language courses in Latin and Greek continuing even in early January, under the tutorship of Patrick Ryan. Numbers in the Greek class approached double figures, with smaller numbers taking Latin. Meanwhile, the lecture programme piled up to almost crisis point and, between changes and cancellations, three lectures had to be put back to the Summer term. Our speakers included Mr Gerald O’Carroll on ‘Ogham Stones and Greek Crosses: early Christian Ireland and the Mediterranean’, Dr Jason Harris (Dept of Classics, UCC) on ‘Language in Utopia: Greek Nonsense and Classical Standards’, and Mr Patrick Ryan on ‘“Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto”. The Roman Playwright, Publius Terentius Afer’. After Easter we presented three further lectures: ‘Small Surprises and Detours: Ovid in 2018’ by Dr Maeve O’Brien (Dept of Classics, MU), ‘The Jewel in the Crown: the Royal Library of Alexandria’ by Prof. John Madden (formerly of the Dept of Classics, NUI Galway), and ‘Did Socrates have to die?’ by Dr Frank Flanagan (ex Dept of Education, M.I.C.E.). On the occasion of Prof. Madden’s visit, tributes were paid to his former colleague and close friend Professor Colm Luibhéid, recently deceased. Prof. Luibhéid delivered the inaugural lecture on the foundation of the Limerick Branch in February 1995.
The inaugural meeting of the CAI Limerick Branch in Mary Immaculate College of Education, 8 February, 1995. L-R: Tony Costello, Brendan Smith, Rosalie Moloney (Chairperson of the Council), Prof. Colm Luibhéid, Mary Walsh-Seaver, Tom Seaver.