With comprehensive indexing and 20 black & white illustrations, this revised standard paperback edition explores the genealogical traditions of the MacMahon family of Thomond (North Munster, especially Co. Clare) for centuries BEFORE they took the surname Mac Mathghamhna Thuadhmhumhan ('Son of Mathghamhain of Thomond'). This name is also spelled McMahon and Mahon in English.
Once considered lost, these are the genealogical secrets of the Celtic Iron Age and Migration Period. To tell this story, the author has accessed the mass of information preserved in the Irish Language since the 7th century in Ireland's most important genealogical manuscripts. These precious documents had been hidden away in a handful of collections since the physical and cultural genocide of the Gaeil in the 17th century, and were therefore inaccessible until recently to almost all Irish, their diaspora, and their genealogists. Happily, these Irish Language manuscripts have finally been set in type and published after waiting between 350 and 850 years.
Because this book uses and translates into English this ancient but newly-available genealogical tradition as it relates to the MacMahon family of Thomond, it is the first of its kind about this family in the modern era.
Caveat - Mac Mathghamhna ('MacMahon') is the surname of two, distinct, unrelated sloinnte (extended, surnamed families): MacMahon of Thomond and MacMahon of Monaghan. This book examines the pre-surname genealogies, history, myth and Brehon Law of the MacMahons of Thomond.
Physical description - This is the revised standard paperback edition of 218 pages, 7 X 10 inch format, including 20 black & white illustrations and comprehensive indexing.
Jerry Kelly holds an M.A. in Celtic Studies with distinction from the University of Wales Trinity Saint David and a B.S. from Yale University. He is also a former Adjunct Professor of Irish Language and Culture at Fordham University.
His coursework at Yale, Harvard, and the University of Wales Trinity Saint David to date has included Celtic linguistics, archaeology of the Western world and the Middle East, Old Irish, Minoan & Mycenaean archaeology, Modern Irish, the Indo-European expansion and its mythology, Celtic mythology, classical civilization including Greek and Roman religion and Homeric epic, Early Irish Historical Tales, historical research methods, the Celtic Arthur, early Celtic Christianity, the medieval Irish church, and the early modern history of England and Celtic Cornwall, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland.
He taught Irish on behalf of The Irish Arts Center in New York from 1979 to 1981; plus mythology and Seanchas through the medium of the Irish Language at Scoil Ghaeilge Ghearóid Tóibín / The Gerry Tobin Irish Language School from 1989 to 2007; and Irish and Irish Gaelic culture at Fordham from 2008 to 2010.
He currently serves on the Advisory Board for the Irish Institute of Molloy College, teaches Irish on behalf of Cumann Carad na Gaeilge / The Philo-Celtic Society (www.philo-celtic.com), writes the Seanchas column for the Irish Language magazine AN GAEL, and is a member of the American Conference for Irish Studies and the American Irish Teachers Association.
He is also the author of a number of books and articles in Irish and in English including "Before the Kilt: How the Irish and Scots Dressed in the 16th Century" (Druid Press, 2011) and "An Chopail in Abairtí Aicme" (Druid Press, 2012).
