Dr Ken Ó Donnchú

A mixture of both, I'd imagine.

Now, who wrote it down were poets, and some of these go back over 600 or 700 years and even more.

But their sources of inspiration were mixed.

They were from literature and also from their own oral culture.

So, you know, whatever the equivalent of a pub was 600 years ago, pub talk and people conversing with each other.

And it's also important, I think, when we think about Irish literature over a length of time, just how robust and how strong the oral tradition was.

I mean, a hundred years ago, no TV, no radio came into existence, but there was such an emphasis on speech and being witty and being well-spoken was a really important quality all across the country, but especially, I think, in the Irish language itself.

And you have specific phrases which refer to that, being deshféilach, being well-spoken, and it didn't necessarily have anything to do with learning.

And yet, if you were looking for advice back then, you know, you didn't go to your therapist, you didn't go to the self-help section of your bookstore, you didn't, as many of us do now, go on to AI, chat GBT and ask them for advice to something you did turn towards in literature.

Yeah, absolutely you did.

And I think that kind of, that's so, that stands out in this collection that this was something, it's a collection of folk wisdom that people fell back on in times of need, in times when you need instruction and some guidance.

And then also certain times just to let off a bit of steam and have a go off somebody in a slight little dig.

Now, it was based, as you say, on the original collation put together by T.F.

O'Reilly.

He's a really interesting character.

He was a first cousin of Michael O'Reilly, the O'Reilly, which people will be familiar with.

But he himself wasn't that well known.

So was recognising his work important to you?

And why do you think it should be done?

Yeah, absolutely.