Pledge to the king: unless the sky shall fall with its showers of stars on the ground, we shall not give ground

The fighting Irish . . . this is a quote from the famous Irish mythical epic Táin Bó Cuailnge. The Ulster heroes declare this to king Conchubhar when he calls upon them to leave a battle in order to meet an attack in another part of the field.

Heaven is above us,
and earth beneath us,
and the sea is round about us.
Unless the sky shall fall with its showers of stars on the
ground where we are camped,
or unless the earth shall be
rent by an earthquake,
or unless the waves of the blue sea
come over the forests of the living world,
we shall not give ground.

Read the entire Táin Bó Cuailnge here.

Study looks at social networking of Irish epic The Táin

Researchers have used mathematics to conclude that ancient Irish epic, Táin Bó Cúailnge, may be more closely based on real-life societies than previously thought.

A drawing for Thomas Kinsella's translation of The Táin
by the late Louis Le Brocquy. 

The study takes a numerical look at how interactions between characters in the ancient Táin Bó Cúailnge compare with real social networks.

Two Irish academics compared the social network structures in the story to each other, to real social networks and to fictitious societies such as in Harry Potter and Marvel comics.

The study by Padraig Mac Carron and Ralph Kenna of the applied mathematics research centre at Coventry University, England was published in the European physics journal, EPL, yesterday.

Read the full story here