A short life of the author
Seathrún Céitinn (Geoffrey Keating, c. 1569–c. 1644) was an Irish Catholic priest, poet, and historian from County Tipperary who was educated at a continental Irish college in Bordeaux before returning to Ireland to serve as a parish priest.
Foras Feasa ar Éirinn
His masterwork, Foras Feasa ar Éirinn (The History of Ireland, written c. 1634), is a narrative history of Ireland from mythological origins through the Norman invasion of 1169. Written in elegant early modern Irish, the work was both a history and a polemic — Keating was explicitly countering the negative portrayals of Irish people in English histories by Giraldus Cambrensis, Edmund Spenser, and others.
The Foras Feasa circulated widely in manuscript for over a century before being printed (the first English translation appeared in 1723). It was one of the most copied texts in the Irish manuscript tradition and profoundly influenced Irish national consciousness.
Collecting Keating
Early printed editions and translations of Keating’s history are collected by specialists in Irish history and Celtic studies. The Irish Texts Society edition (1902–1914, 4 volumes) is the standard scholarly text. Manuscript copies in Irish, dating from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, are held by major libraries and occasionally appear at auction.