The Anglo-Norman invasion and the twelfth-century humanist revival marked a turning point in Ireland’s literary relations with continental Europe in the late medieval period. Anglo-Norman French in Ireland is attested by verse texts, legal and administrative records, and loan words absorbed into Gaelic. Some compositions in Irish indicate what could be called French influence, but much of the material involved is common to latinitas ("Latinity," Western European culture of the period in various languages). Direct transmission from medieval French sources probably occurred, but mediation via Latin or Middle English versions is also attested. Brian Ua Corcrain, author of the neo-Arthurian tale Eachtra Mhacaomh an Iolair (The Tale of the Eagle Youth) stated that he "heard the bones of this story from a nobleman who said he had heard it told in French" and that he adapted it, adding short verse passages. Such lack of precision illustrates the difficulty of establishing sources for such texts in Gaelic, whether Irish or (later) Scottish. The Irish Hercules, Stair Ercuil ocus a bhas, is a Gaelic adaptation of an English version of Raoul Lefevre’s Recueils des Histoires de Troies (1464, French). Similarly, the Irish version of the travels of Sir John Mandeville (original in French) was translated in approximately 1475 from an English version. Two Irish Charlemagne tales derive not from a French chanson de geste but from a Latin chronicle.
Tales drawn from the Arthurian cycle are relatively few and of a late date compared to other European languages. The incomplete translation of the Quest for the Holy Grail (the Cistercian La Queste del Saint Graal), entitled Lorgaireacht an tSoidhigh Naomhtha by its editor, dates from the fourteenth or fifteenth century. It is the only direct version of an Arthurian tale in Irish, remaining close to the original(s)—details indicate that the author drew on more than one original, as it differs in places from Malory’s Tale of the Sankg-real and also from the French. Eachtra an Amadain Mhoir (The Story of the Great Fool) is a variation on the story of Perceval. It may derive from or be a response to the French originals and also contains elements of the tale of Gawain and the Green Knight. Such motifs were no doubt easily adapted, given their resemblance to some Ulster Cycle tales. The modern debate on the Irish origins of medieval French Arthurian myths is ongoing, but no awareness of such a connection surfaces in the medieval Gaelic material. Gawain appears in Gaelic tales and narrative poems (or "lays") as Sir Bhalbhuaidh or Uallabh, in Eachtra an Mhadra Mhaoil (The Tale of the Crop-eared Dog), in the Hebridean story Sir Uallabh O Cdrn, and the lay Am Bron Binn (The Melodious Sorrow). The fifteenth-century tale Ceilf Iosgaide Leithe (Grey Thigh’s Visit) is set in the framework of King Arthur and the Round Table and features a King of Gascony. Burlesque humor is an element in many of the above tales. Determining French or English origins is difficult as many of the surviving manuscripts and versions are post medieval. The relation between manuscript and oral versions has been the subject of scholarly debate since Alan Bruford’s major study Gaelic Folktales and Medieval Romances (1966).
Other material includes Eachtra Uilliam (the French Guillaume de Palerme), translated from a sixteenth-century English prose version, and a variation on Orlando Furioso set in the Arthurian framework.
Late medieval Irish love poetry and love songs were influenced by French courtly poetry, transmitted by Anglo-Norman settlers according to Sean O Tuama’s study (1962) classifying Irish folk songs under French categories. However, the concept of "amour courtois" used by O Tuama dates from the nineteenth-century work of Gaston Paris, whose interpretation has been revised by subsequent studies. Conclusive textual proof that the folk songs contain specifically French motifs as opposed to English or international elements is lacking. O Tuama conceded this but maintained the French hypothesis in his 1988 work on elite poetry, the Danta Gradha (Love Poems). However, this corpus of texts is by predominantly post-medieval authors, with two exceptions, the poetry of one of whom, the Anglo-Norman third earl of Desmond, Gearoid Iarla (c. 1360), shows no clear French characteristics. Mfcheal Mac Craith (1989) has demonstrated that many of the Danta Gradha are not love poems in the proper sense and has traced some poems to English models. A further instance of possible French influence is the story of "the prince who never slept," found only in the Old French lay Tydorel (c. 1220) and in oral tales collected in Irish-speaking districts. The questions of which direction the tale moved in or whether it descends from a common Celtic archetype are unresolved.
