Classical Antiquity and Medieval Ireland: An Anthology of Medieval Irish Texts and Interpretations, ed. Michael Clarke, Erich Poppe, and Isabelle Torrance. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2024, xxviii, 448 pp.

Greece, Rome, Ireland: an intriguing trio. It recalls not only Joyce’s Ulysses (Dublin’s own Odyssey), but Yeats’s “Homer is my example” or Heaney’s Virgil translations. Twenty-one contributors here thus guide us to interactions of three civilizations, with chapters organized into seven sections. After an introduction, we encounter ancient history; Troy; Latin epic (Virgil, Lucan, Statius); myths and pseudo-history (from Samson to Alexander the Great); Ireland’s legendary pasts (invasions, settlement, the Boyne as goddess, Tara, Ulster heroes, Brian Ború); and an epilogue (on reception of classical texts and on manuscripts). Result: an unusual collection, few scholars being adept in Irish as well as in Greek and Latin.