It is a loss to all, since early Irish literature is one of the oldest and most elegant vernacular traditions. I find a beautiful and sorrowful passage from Cath Maige Tuired always serves well to illustrate that.

The hosts gave a great shout as they went into battle. Then they came together, and each of them began to strike the other.

Many beautiful men fell there in the stall of death. Great was the slaughter and the grave-lying which took place there. Pride and shame were there side by side. There was anger and indignation. Abundant was the stream of blood over the white skin of young warriors mangled by the hands of bold men while rushing into danger for shame. Harsh was the noise made by the multitude of warriors and champions protecting their swords and shields and bodies while others were striking them with spears and swords. Harsh too the tumult all over the battlefield-the shouting of the warriors and the clashing of bright shields, the swish of swords and ivory-hilted blades, the clatter and rattling of the quivers, the hum and whirr of spears and javelins, the crashing strokes of weapons.

As they hacked at each other their fingertips and their feet almost met; and because of the slipperiness of the blood under the warriors' feet, they kept failing down, and their heads were cut off them as they sat. A gory, wound-inflicting, sharp, bloody battle was upheaved, and spearshafts were reddened in the hands of foes.

The ignorance towards traditional culture unfortunately extends right to the present. Ireland has one of the largest and finest collections of modern folklore in the National Folklore Collection, but what ought to be renowned as a supreme treasure of these islands is instead little known.