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Tecosca Cormaic

Old Irish text

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMay 30, 2024
Entity authorityQ2399683 ↗
Source-derived summary

Tecosca Cormaic "The Instructions of Cormac" is a ninth-century Old Irish gnomic text which is cast as a dialogue between the legendary High-King of Ireland, Cormac mac Airt, and his son Coirpre Lifechair.

Manuscripts

H 2.18 or Book of Leinster, pp. 343–5 (TCD).

23 P 12 or Book of Ballymote (), ff. 39-41 (RIA)

H 2.17, pp. 179–180 (TCD)

23 N 10 (Betham 145), pp. 1–6 (RIA)

23 N 17, pp. 1–6 (RIA)

H 4.8 (TCD)

Advocates Library VII.3., ff. 9a-9b (Edinburgh). Written by Ádhamh Ó Cuirnín

23 N 27 (Academy 14.4.), pp.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Tecosca Cormaic” is old Irish text. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Tecosca, Cormaic and Irish, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current 93-word lead offers orientation but no explicit four-digit date, so chronology should not be assumed. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Tecosca, Cormaic and Irish is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “old Irish text” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 30, 2024. The linked authority identifier is Q2399683. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Tecosca Cormaic”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Tecosca Cormaic primary sources, Tecosca Cormaic archive and Tecosca research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Tecosca Cormaic”?
  2. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Tecosca Cormaic” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.