Review: Pádraig Ó Riain (ed.), The poems of Blathmac son of Cú Brettan: reassessments: Irish Texts Society subsidiary series 27. Irish Texts Society. London 2015. x + 201 pp. € 21. ISBN 9780957566149

The annual Irish Texts Society seminar has hitherto yielded many valuable reassessments on previous ITS publications. The present book is the fruit of the ITS seminar in November 2014 that celebrated the jubilee of James Carney’s The Poems of Blathmac (ITS vol. 47, London 1964). All five speakers at the seminar have contributed to this volume, giving readers an exceptionally comprehensive review of the different aspects of Blathmac’s poems. However, it should be noted from the start that all contributors only attend to the two poems ascribed to Blathmac, whereas the two other poems edited by Carney in the same book, those on the ‘Gospel of Thomas’ and on the Virgin Mary, have not been treated in the present volume.