Manannán

Manannán written in 1940 by Máiréad Ní Ghráda. An Irish-language young adult sci-fi space travel book. Contains one of the first uses of a mecha outside of Japan and the first mention of a gravity assist in literature.

The book has never been reprinted or translated. Máiréad Ní Ghráda is an important Irish writer and the project aims to make her work more widely available. This digitisation project aims to make the book more accessible and widely read. The text used the old Irish orthography (dot over the letter = h after the letter, etc.).

Clár an Leabhair (Table of Contents)

#	Chapter	Old Format	Modern Irish	Pages	PDF
	Cover	—	—		PNG
0	Front matter	Front matter	Front matter	1–8	PDF
1	A Planet No Human Eye Had Ever Seen Before	Pláinéid ná Feaca Súil Duine riaṁ	Pláinéid nach bhFaca Súil Duine riamh	9–17	PDF
2	The View through the Telescope	An Raḋarc tríd an gCiandracán	An Radharc tríd an gCiandracán	18–30	PDF
3	The Journey to Manannán	An Turas go Manannán	An Turas go Manannán	31–43	PDF
4	Manannán	Manannán	Manannán	44–52	PDF
5	The People of Manannán	Muintear Manannáin	Muintir Mhanannáin	53–67	PDF
6	The Cráidhmí	Na ‘Cráiḋmí’	Na‘Cráidhmí’	68–75	PDF
7	The High-Master	An tÁrd-Ṁáiġistir	An tÁrd-Mháighistir	76–86	PDF
8	The Prison	An Priosún	An Príosún	87–97	PDF
9	The Night in the Woods	Oiḋċe sa Ċoill	Oíche sa Choill	98–109	PDF
10	The Engine	An tInneall	An tInneall	110–123	PDF
11	The Night of all Nights	Oiḋċe ṫar Oiḋċeanta	Oíche thar Oícheanta	124–136	PDF
12	Lugh of the Long Arm	‘Luġ Láṁ-ḟada’	‘Lugh Lámhfhada’	137–150	PDF
13	The Fight with the Cráidhmí	An Tróid leis na ‘Cráiḋmí’	An Tróid leis na‘Cráidhmí’	151–165	PDF
14	Revenge	Díoġaltas	Díoltas	166–177	PDF
15	The Escape	An tÉalóḋ	An tÉalú	178–188	PDF

Old Format — caibidlí/old-orthography/: PDF-faithful transcription (old orthography). Modern Irish — caibidlí/new-orthography/: old-style characters updated mechanically; manual spelling updates are still in progress.

How to Help

Read the New version linked in the table of contents above (caibidlí/new-orthography/). If you find errors, say so with an issue or message on social media and the text will be updated from that. If you are comfortable with Git, a pull request with edits is welcome too. Corrections are especially welcome from Irish speakers.

Contents of This Repo

Text layers (caibidlí/)

• Old — caibidlí/old-orthography/: transcription from the PDF, aiming to match the printed text as closely as possible (including old Irish orthography).
• New* — caibidlí/new-orthography/: same text after replacing old-style characters with modern equivalents (mechanical / grapheme pass from Old).
• Spell — caibidlí/spelling/: This might eventually be a version with modern spelling. But it is important to keep the authors voice and care is needed to not overly modernise the text

Chapter PDFs live under caibidlí/ (e.g. manannan01.pdf). Conversion scripts are in caibidlí/conversion/ (e.g. build_new_orthography.py, fetch_caighdean_chapter.py).

epub

• Scripts and files to build an EPUB
• Not implemented yet. If you would like to buy a copy when a physical reprint exists, please comment.