The Manuscript Tradition
Well after the introduction of printing to Ireland, works in Irish continued to be disseminated in manuscript form.
Access to the printing press was hindered in the 1500s and the 1600s by official caution, although an Irish version of the Bible (known as Bedell's Bible after the Anglican clergyman who commissioned it) was published in the 17th century. A number of popular works in Irish, both devotional and secular, were available in print by the early 19th century, but the manuscript remained the most affordable means of transmission almost until the end of the century.
Manuscripts were collected by literate individuals (schoolmasters, farmers and others) and were copied and recopied. They might include material several centuries old. Access to them was not confined to the literate: the contents were read aloud at local gatherings, thus exposing even the illiterate to the riches of the literature. This was still the case in the late 19th century in Irish-speaking districts.
Manuscripts were often taken abroad, particularly to America. In the 19th century many of these were collected by individuals or cultural institutions.
Read more about this topic: Irish Literature
Famous quotes containing the words manuscript and/or tradition:
“The manuscript lay like a dust-rag on his desk, and Eitel found, as he had found before, that the difficulty of art was that it forced a man back on his life, and each time the task was more difficult and distasteful.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)
“But, with whatever exception, it is still true that tradition characterizes the preaching of this country; that it comes out of the memory, and not out of the soul; that it aims at what is usual, and not at what is necessary and eternal; that thus historical Christianity destroys the power of preaching, by withdrawing it from the exploration of the moral nature of man; where the sublime is, where are the resources of astonishment and power.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)