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The Church Fathers · c. 597
The Elegy of Colum Cille
Amra Choluim Chille
Dallán Forgaill
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What it is
A lament for Columba composed at his death in language so compressed and archaic that medieval Irish scribes had to gloss almost every word. He studied the books of Solomon, it says, and Ireland is a harp without its string.
Why it lasted
The earliest substantial poem in Irish and one of the oldest in any vernacular European language, made for a Christian abbot by a trained fili in the old bardic manner — the two traditions meeting in a single text.
Scripture it works from
Where to read it
Public domain and free to read in full, though not held here. The archives below have it.
These open a search on each archive rather than a direct link, which is the honest way to point at an edition nobody here has checked line by line.
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