Introduction to the Senchus Mor

      In my previous post, I introduce the Brehon texts and talk about their historical context. In this post, I will introduce the specific context of the Senchus Mor, describe what it covers, and analyze excerpts that can help determine its role in history and Law in general. I will also briefly talk about the important early scholars of this text, and what role it plays in Ireland nowadays. 

     Marx Engels says that "the Senchus Mor has until now been our main source of information about conditions in Ireland." It is indeed true that the Senchus Mor is one of the most influential and detailed document in the study of Brehon Law.

     The text starts with its own introduction, talking about why it was written, who wrote it, and when it was written. It is clearly a postscribed addendum, potentially from someone who wished to alter the interpretation of the text. The first two pages provide a lot of information:

    Evidently, the Senchus Mor was created by the order of King Laeghaire (Loegaire mac Neill, the High King from 428-458AD, supposedly converted to Christianity by Saint Patrick) that wanted to collect all "old laws." This means that he wanted to collect all oral laws and transcribe them to keep them from changing much, and allowing them to spread more easily across Ireland. The nine people mentioned are those who transcribed, compiled, and possibly modified, the laws that ended up in the Senchus Mor. The Patrick that is mentioned in the list is indeed Saint Patrick. 

    The text of the Senchus Mor was actually written in the 8th Century, long after the death of Saint Patrick and King Laeghaire. This means that some of the information given in this introduction is completely false and added to give the text more credibility and legitimacy, which is always helpful with legal texts. It is unknown exactly who wrote this introduction, which would be the best way to find out exactly why this made up information was added; however, it is reasonable to assume it is a Christian monk.

    It is said that all laws that clashed with Christianity were modified or removed to suit Christian Canon. In the next post we will examine how far they went in modifying these laws by looking at the text itself for clues, such as laws that still clash with Christianity, or blatant signs of  modification, such as insertions of prose in the middle of verse text.

    The Senchus Mor is mostly in verse, apart from the aforementioned prose splicing, which seems odd for a legal text, since it is much harder to make verse as specific and concise as prose, as well as keep interpretation relatively simple and less variable. However, all of these laws were memorized in order to have been passed down orally, and verse is considerably easier to memorize than prose, especially for legalese text. Apart from spliced-in prose, there are a few sections that are in prose, mostly within Volume 1. There are supposedly 6 volumes of the Senchus Mor, 3 of which remain in entirety. The first volume covers the law of distress (Archive volume 1), the second covers the law of hostages (Marx Engels), the third covers customary law (Archive volume 3), the fourth covers the law of the family (Marx Engels). All manuscripts we have remaining have annotations, notes, and commentary/translation for some terms, most likely added by copyists.

    Kevin Flanagan of Brehon Law Academy provides an interesting bibliophilical side-note - that the original Gaelic text is read starting in the middle of the paragraph, and then reading outwards, alternating lines above and below, which "gives the impression that the line or principle being discussed is literally being expanded upon." (Brehon Law Academy). However, considering that the original text is no longer available, this may have been the creation of a copyist many years later. 

References:

Ancient Laws and Institutes of Ireland, volume 1 through 6, except volume 2, from Archive.org. Volumes 1-3 cover the Senchus Mor. https://archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3A%22Ireland.+Commissioners+for+Publishing+the+Ancient+Laws+and+Institutes+of+Ireland%22

Flanagan, Kevin. (2014, June 5). Irish Manuscripts: The Senchus Mor. Brehon Law Academy. https://www.brehonlawacademy.ie/single-post/2014/06/05/Irish-Manuscripts-The-Senchus-M%C3%B3r 

[This is a brief piece from Frederick Engels' work on a book he intended to publish, but never finished, known as "History of Ireland." Marxists.org gives the following description of it: History of Ireland is a fragment of a voluminous work Engels intended to write and on which he worked at the end of 1869 and during the first half of 1870. Engels studied a vast selection of literary and historical sources: the works of antique and medieval writers, annals, collections of ancient law codes, legislative acts and legal treatises, folklore, travellers’ notes, numerous works on archaeology, history, economics, geography, geology, etc. Engels’s bibliography, embracing over 150 titles, is selective and includes but a fraction of the sources he studied. It is from marxists.org because Karl Marx did indeed collaborate to some degree with Frederick Engels, as he was a scholar of Irish History, because early Irish society greatly intrigued him.] Frederick Engels. (1870). Marx Engels on Ireland. marxists.org. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1870/history-ireland/senchus-mor.htm

Joyce, P. W..(1906). A Smaller Social History of Ireland. libraryireland.com. https://www.libraryireland.com/SocialHistoryAncientIreland/I-IV-2.php

Writers and editors of Stair na hEirann. (n.d.). Brehon Law: the Senchus Mor. stairnaheirann.net. https://stairnaheireann.net/2017/09/15/brehon-law-the-senchus-mor-2/

Wikipedia:

'Loegaire Mac Neill'

[This Place is Not a Place of Honor] Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Used)

    My parents bought a Harry Potter book box set for my older sister when we were in second grade, and since then each of those books has been read front to back at least a cumulative 10 times by my family. The first three books had around 200-300 pages, which wasn’t unreasonable for me at the time I read it, though the fourth, the Goblet of Fire, was a daunting 636. It took me the longest to read out of all the books, but I loved it the most, and you can certainly tell from our copy’s battered state. First of all, the frayed cardboard cover of the book is visible through the corners, and the cloth spine is pilled, stretched and caked in dust. The pages themselves have held up only half decently: there aren’t a lot of tears, though the first 30 or so pages have some water damage, and most every page has been dogeared, had their bottom corners bent upwards, and have a crease near the spine where my sisters or I would fold them into place. Yet the most noticeable wear and tear is that a few sections of the book have fallen out completely, and the footband of the book has come unstuck from the spine, revealing more flimsy cardboard and brittle chunks of dry glue, the first 250-something pages of the book only hanging on by the front cover.

    Our copy is somewhat inhibiting to read, and it has to be handled gently to keep the pages from falling out, making it impossible to quickly hide it under the covers when reading with a flashlight past your bedtime. I can’t remember when exactly the book got to be in this sorry state, though it would be somewhere between 6 and 8 years ago. I’ve reread the entire series around 5 or 6 times, and each time I briefly consider purchasing another copy when I reach book 4, until the thought is dispelled by nostalgia. Plus, on recent rereads of The Goblet of Fire, when I reached page 245, I could just put the severed chunk I was reading from in my bag rather than toting around a heavy book. Convenient!

CRISPR Applications {Vision Possibilities}

 Editas Medicine and Allergan have teamed up in order to find a treatment for Leber Congenital Amaurosis 10(LCA10). LCA 10 is an inherited degenerative eye disorder. LCA10 symptoms become apparent within the first year of birth, LCA10 will continue to worsen throughout the individuals life time, often leaving them severely visually impaired and or blind. LCA10 is considered to be relatively rare affecting 1-2 out of 100,000 births. LCA10 specifically is the worsening of the ocular photoreceptor cells. Editas Medicine and Allergan have announced their clinical trial "The Brilliance Phase 1/2 Trial of AGN-151587(edit 101) for Treatment of LCA10. Their exact description "The purpose of this study is to evaluate the safety, tolerability and efficacy of a single escalating doses of AGN-151587 (EDIT-101) administered via sub retinal injection in participants with LCA10 caused by a homozygous or compound heterozygous mutation involving c.2991+1655A>G in intron 26 of the CEP290 gene ("LCA10-IVS26")".  LCR is a promising candidate for CRISPR because the disease is monogenic meaning the involvement or control by a singular gene, making the targeting much easier and quicker. 

Picture below describes the 'protocol' of AGN-151587.

Bibliography 

“Research and Pipeline.” Editas Medicine, 5 Nov. 2020, www.editasmedicine.com/gene-editing-pipeline/.

Park, Alice. “CRISPR Gene Editing Is Being Tested in Human Patients.” Time, Time, 6 Aug. 2019, time.com/5642755/crispr-gene-editing-humans/.

“Allergan and Editas Medicine Initiate the Brilliance Phase 1/2 Clinical Trial of AGN-151587 (EDIT-101) for the Treatment of LCA10.” Editas Medicine, ir.editasmedicine.com/news-releases/news-release-details/allergan-and-editas-medicine-initiate-brilliance-phase-12.

“Single Ascending Dose Study in Participants With LCA10 - Full Text View.” Full Text View - ClinicalTrials.gov, www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03872479?cond=LCA10.

“Leber Congenital Amaurosis: MedlinePlus Genetics.” MedlinePlus, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 18 Aug. 2020, medlineplus.gov/genetics/condition/leber-congenital-amaurosis/.

 

[Status - Brehon] Macbeth

Middle School Macbeth Copy

    I read Macbeth in school in 6th grade as part of my English class. In Theater class you guys get printed and stapled packets for your plays, but this was in actual codex form since we were just reading it and not performing and memorizing. The school gave the copies out to all 30 of us, so it was kind of like a textbook for us. It was the basic text of Macbeth with a lot of extra historical information, images, pictures from actual performance of Macbeth, and explanations for some lines of the play. My copy has a lot of highlighting and underlining throughout it that is probably very similar to all 30 of my classmate's copies. What is unique about mine is the drawings and doodles sacrilegiously spread throughout the margins. These drawings are all terrible and mostly done in highlighter - some by me and others by my friends sitting next to me at the time. 

    Looking at the book's cover and flipping through it definitely reminds me of that class - my classmates and my great teacher, Mr. Bauer - but these memories are neither fond nor unpleasant. Looking at the book reminds me mostly of the content of Macbeth despite the personal significance of the actual codex. This is mostly due to the simple fact that nothing incredibly memorable happened in that class in the time-frame we were reading Macbeth or as a result a of reading the play. 

[The Knightly Hub - But Not] Spooky Old Tree

 Regard the image below for a moment.

There is nothing particularly valuable nor unique about this 2002 Bright and Early Books copy of The Berenstain Bears and the Spooky Old Tree. I would be lying outright if I told you that when I held up Stan and Jan Berenstain’s book I saw the eyes of God discreetly printed on the pages. In fact, this particular cover is the second result on Google images. However, the value of this book is drawn from its imperfections. From the dents in the cover to the fading and misprints in the images, it’s something special. Each page is creased ever so slightly by thumbprints from countless readings in my very early years. In fact, despite my illiteracy, I managed to memorize the entire book simply because I heard my parents read it so many times. Despite all of this, the US $8.99 price tag remains almost perfectly intact on the back of the book. The price seems to have stayed pretty consistent over the years. Nowadays, I believe my fascination was drawn from the images rather than the story.

“Do they dare go up that twisty old stair?” 

“Yes. They dare.”

Title XI

   The Dawn of Champions

Title IX is the single biggest thing ever to have happened to American sports. Since Title IX was passed in 1972, women's participation in high school athletics has rocketed up over 990 percent; it has similarly gone up more than 545 percent in college sports. Prior to Title XI, fewer than one out of 27 girls played any form of sport, today that number is two of five. Today there aren’t just more American women playing sports than before- they are better at it as well. In the 2016 Rio Olympics, the world watched as American women shattered record after record and collected medal upon medal for a total of 61; by comparison, Chinese male and female athletes, coming in second place in the overall medal count, earned a total of  seventy medals. 

Girl’s soccer in America benefited hugely from Title XI. Youth soccer was experiencing a boom in popularity throughout the country as Title XI was passed. Title IX supercharged this growth. In 1980 there were roughly 900,000 kids playing soccer; by 2000, that number had more than tripled to over 3 million. The proportion of girls playing youth recreational soccer nationwide grew at an even faster rate, from less than five percent in 1980 to over fifty percent in 2000, a truly unprecedented occurrence.

At the high school level, the growth of female soccer players was also dramatic. In 1976 only ten percent of players were female; that’s less than 10,000 people at the time. That number had quadrupled to 41,000 in 1980. By 1990, still more high school girls took up the cleats and shin guards, and 35 percent of all high soccer players were female, for a total of over 120,000 girls. By 2000, nearly 270,000 girls played high school soccer, representing 42 percent of high school soccer players. Today, in 2020, that number is 394,000, which is almost half of all the high school soccer players in America.

Staying in line with the trend, women's collegiate level soccer benefited tremendously from Title XI, maybe even more so than lower school. Although participation numbers are not readily available, a good estimate can be gleaned from the number of NCAA institutions sponsoring soccer. In 1981, men’s soccer was fairly well established, with 521 varsity teams,  substantially more than the women's measly 77 sponsoring schools. By 1985, women were up to 201 teams, and by 1990, that number grew to 318. By then, nearly 40 percent of NCAA (National College Athletic Association) colleges sponsored women soccer teams, up from just 10 percent just a decade  prior. The men’s program had only grown from 521 to 569, and remained stagnant at 70 percent of colleges. Meanwhile, the growth for women not only continued, but actually accelerated during the late 1990’s, overtaking the men in 1997. By 1999, there were many more women’s varsity programs in the NCAA than men’s, 790 to 719. Women, who could only count on 11% of the NCAA institutions to provide them a soccer opportunity before Title XI now had a choice from 77% of the institutions, while men remained steady at 70%.

 As womens soccer increased in popularity and more and more schools jumped on the bandwagon, tournaments were formed. By the early 1980s, the NJCAA and NAIA launched their first women’s championships, and the NCAA added champions in Divisions II and III in 1986 and 1988 respectively. These tournaments grew in size throughout the 1990’s, which culminated the 2001 expansion of the Division I tournament to 64 teams, twice as large as the men’s 32. It was in the late 1900’s and early 2000’s that big name schools like Central Florida, George Mason, Connecticut, Santa Clara, Notre Dame, UCLA and Penn State became regular contenders for the national title, though, they were usually all beaten by North Carolina Chapel Hill’s Tar Heels in the end, a recurring theme to this day. These top teams groomed the best players for a career on the National Team, which would grow to become the most successful National women's soccer team yet formed, all thanks to title XI.

No.	School	College Cup Years	NCAA Appearances	Championships
29	North Carolina	1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2012, 2016, 2018, 2019	33	21
12	Notre Dame	1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1999, 2000, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010	20	3
11	UCLA	2000, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2013, 2017, 2019	17	1
10	Stanford	1993, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2014, 2017, 2018, 2019	25	3
10	Florida State	2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2018	17	2
10	Santa Clara	1989, 1990, 1992, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2004	22	1
8	Portland	1994, 1995, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2005	19	2
7	UConn	1982, 1983, 1984, 1990, 1994, 1997, 2003	29	0
6	Massachusetts	1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1993	15	0
5	Penn State	1999, 2002, 2005, 2012, 2015	25	1
5	Colorado College	1985, 1986, 1989, 1990, 1991	9	0
4	Duke	1992, 2011, 2015, 2017	18	0
4	George Mason	1983, 1985, 1986, 1993	11	1
3	Virginia	1991, 2013, 2014	25	0
3	California	1984, 1987, 1988	20	0
2	Georgetown	2016, 2018	7	0
2	USC	2007, 2016	14	2
2	Florida	1998, 2001	16	1
2	Wisconsin	1988, 1991	17	0
2	NC State	1988, 1989	11	0
2	UCF	1982, 1987	17	0
1	Washington State	2019	13	0
1	South Carolina	2017	11	0
1	West Virginia	2016	17	0
1	Rutgers	2015	10	0
1	Texas A&M	2014	20	0
1	Virginia Tech	2013	8	0
1	Wake Forest	2011	16	0
1	Boston College	2010	15	0
1	Ohio State	2010	7	0
1	Princeton	2004	9	0

Women’s college soccer was able to shoot up like it did for a number of reasons. First, the number of NCAA colleges had increased by roughly a quarter since 1980, adding over 350 schools to it’s bank. Second, there was the direct impact of Title IX, which required equal expenditures between men’s and women’s sports, and equal participation.  And third, it provided a body of well trained women athletes rising up through the youth soccer system.

Title XI is sometimes blamed for the disbandment or underfunding of some men's college programs.  This blame is understandable, but  misguided.  It is unfortunate that some sports do not get the founding that they deserve, but it is not the use of college funds in the support of women's equality that is to blame for their decline. Much to the disappointment of most men’s varsity programs, football eats up so much school funding and requires such a large roster that other men’s sports suffer the cost. Luckily, men’s varsity soccer was not terribly hurt like was the case for sports such as lacrosse, gymnastics, swimming and wrestling, which were really fighting to stay alive by the end of the century. The other point to be made in defense of Title IX is that schools could choose to fund their men’s programs more, so long as they also increase the funding of their women's sports. Colleges and universities are rich.  Harvard for example is sitting on an endowment of $33.7 billion. Schools make financial decisions, as seen in the loss and decline of some sports programs.

                                

      Recommended Readings for this Post

• Litterer, David. “Womens Soccer in the History USA: An Overview.” American Soccer History Archives, 17 Aug. 2011, soccerhistoryusa.org/ASHA/. https://soccerhistoryusa.org/ASHA/womensoverview.html

This article was the main source for this post. This reading is a little dense for a sports history piece, but it is full of some really great stuff pertaining to this week's post and beyond. I will use this article again in the future.

• Schawrb, Amy Wimmer. “How American Women Got a Foot in Soccer.” NCAA.org - The Official Site of the NCAA, 2019, www.ncaa.org/static/champion/how-women-got-a-foot-in-the-game/. http://www.ncaa.org/static/champion/how-women-got-a-foot-in-the-game/

This is a fairly brief, feel good piece, by the NCAA, but it does dive into the specifics of one person's experience with women's college soccer in its earlier days, which is really cool.

• Brake, Deborah L. Getting in the Game: Title IX and the Women's Sports Revolution. New York University Press, 2016. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Getting_in_the_Game/SywUCgAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=

If you are looking to buy a book about Title XI, this is one that I would fully endorse. It isn't strictly a soccer book but everything is fairly applicable to my focus area. This book is well written and although not a simple read, it shouldn't be a pain to get through. Plus a lot of it is free online!e