SOURCE: "The Concept of the Hero in Irish Mythology," in The Irish Mind: Exploring Intellectual Traditions, edited by Richard Kearney, Wolfhound Press, 1985, pp. 79-90.

In the following essay, Ó Cathasaigh explores the nature of the Irish mythological hero as an intermediate figure between gods and humans. In his view, the hero's accomplishments are balanced by his symbolic assertion of "the precariousness of man's position in the cosmos."

Giambattista Vico claimed, as long ago as 1725, that "the first science to be learned should be mythology or the interpretation of fables."¹ Vico's words, and the work of modern mythologists in many fields—anthropology, depth psychology, the history of religions and literary criticism—have left little impression on the intellectual life of Ireland. Yet our manuscripts contain mythological texts whose abundance and archaic character make them unique in Western Europe. Insofar as our mythology has been at all rediscovered, credit must rest...