About this product

Product Identifiers

PublisherSyracuse University Press

ISBN-100815603126

ISBN-139780815603122

eBay Product ID (ePID)236465

Product Key Features

Number of Pages256 Pages

Publication NamePilgrimage in Ireland : the Monuments and the People

LanguageEnglish

SubjectHolidays / Christian, Europe / Ireland

Publication Year1995

TypeTextbook

AuthorPeter Harbison

Subject AreaTravel, Religion, History

SeriesIrish Studies

FormatTrade Paperback

Dimensions

Item Height0.7 in

Item Weight19.7 Oz

Item Length9.2 in

Item Width6.1 in

Additional Product Features

Intended AudienceScholarly & Professional

LCCN91-005052

Dewey Edition20

ReviewsBoth specialists and nonspecialists will profit from this coherent and surprisingly detailed account of Irish pilgrimage from the earliest period down to the present. . . . Harbison's achievement ranks among the very best works written on pilgrimage anywhere.

IllustratedYes

Dewey Decimal263/.042415

SynopsisThe landscape of Ireland is rich with ancient carved stone crosses, tomb-shrines, Romanesque churches, round towers, sundials, beehive huts, Ogham stones and other monuments, many of them dating from before the 12th century. The purpose and function of these artifacts have often been the subject of much debate. Peter Harbison proposes in this book a radical hypothesis: that a great many of these relics can be explained in terms of ecclesiastical pilgrimage. He has constructed a fascination theory about the palace of pilgrimage in the early Christian period, placing it right at the center of communal life. The monuments themselves make much better sense if it looked at in this light--as having come into existence not through the practices of ascetic monks but because of the activities of pilgrims. He begins by searching the historical sources in detail for evidence of early pilgrimage sites. By examining their monuments he projects the findings to other locations where pilgrimage has not been documented. He goes on to describe monument-types of every kind and to identify pilgrims in sculpture surviving from before AD 1200. The Dingle Peninsula in Kerry proves to be a microcosm of pilgrimage monuments, enabling the author to reconstruct a tradition of maritime pilgrimage activity up and down the west coast of Ireland. Indeed, the famous medieval traveler's tale of the fabulous voyage of the St Brendan the Navigator can now be seen as the literary expression of a longstanding maritime pilgrimage along the Atlantic seaways of Ireland and Scotland, reaching Iceland, Greenland, and even North America.