Editing Shamrock (section)

== Early references ==
The word shamrock derives from {{lang|ga|seamair óg}} or young clover, and references to {{lang|ga|semair}} or clover appear in early Irish literature, generally as a description of a flowering clovered plain. For example, in the series of medieval metrical poems about various Irish places called the [[Metrical Dindshenchus]], a poem about [[Tailtiu]] or [[Teltown]] in County Meath describes it as a plain blossoming with flowering clover ({{lang|ga|mag scothach scothshemrach}}).<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/T106500D/index.html|title=The Metrical Dindshenchas|website=ucc.ie|access-date=6 February 2013|archive-date=26 January 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170126112358/http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/T106500D/index.html|url-status=live}}</ref> Similarly, another story tells of how [[St. Brigid]] decided to stay in County Kildare when she saw the delightful plain covered in clover blossom (''scoth-shemrach'').<ref>{{Cite book |last=Stokes |first=Whitley |url=https://archive.org/details/livessaints00stokuoft/page/n153/mode/2up |title=Lives of saints, from the Book of Lismore |publisher=Clarendon Press |year=1890 |location=Oxford |pages=29, 177 |language=en, ga}}</ref> However, the literature in Irish makes no distinction between clover and shamrock, and it is only in English that shamrock emerges as a distinct word.

[[File:Three irish kerns Albert Durer 1521.png|thumb|right|Three "wild Irish" [[Kern (soldier)|kerns]] by [[Albrecht Dürer]] (1521)]]

The first mention of shamrock in the English language occurs in 1571 in the work of the English Elizabethan scholar [[Edmund Campion]]. In his work ''Boke of the Histories of Irelande'', Campion describes the habits of the "wild Irish" and states that the Irish ate shamrock: "Shamrotes, watercresses, rootes, and other herbes they feed upon".<ref>{{cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=g8gvAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA267|title=Ancient Irish Histories: The Works of Spencer, Campion, Hanmer, and Marleburrough|first=Sir James|last=Ware|date=4 September 2017|publisher=Reprinted at the Hibernia Press}}</ref> The statement that the Irish ate shamrock was widely repeated in later works and seems to be a confusion with the Irish word {{lang|ga|seamsóg}} or [[Oxalis|wood sorrel]] (Oxalis).<ref name=":1" /> There is no evidence from any Irish source that the Irish ate clover, but there is evidence that the Irish ate wood sorrel. For example, in the medieval Irish work {{lang|ga|[[Buile Shuibhne]]}} (''The Frenzy of Sweeney''), the king Sweeney, who has gone mad and is living in the woods as a hermit, lists wood sorrel among the plants he feeds upon.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/T302018/index.html|title=Buile Suibhne|website=ucc.ie|access-date=5 February 2013|archive-date=14 February 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130214050631/http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/T302018/index.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

The English Elizabethan poet [[Edmund Spenser]], writing soon after in 1596, described his observations of war-torn Munster after the [[Desmond Rebellion]] in his work ''A View of the Present State of Ireland''. Here shamrock is described as a food eaten as a last resort by starving people desperate for any nourishment during a post-war famine: <blockquote>Anatomies of death, they spake like ghosts, crying out of theire graves; they did eat of the carrions .... and if they found a plott of water cresses or shamrockes theyr they flocked as to a feast for the time, yett not able long to contynewe therewithall.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.luminarium.org/renascence-editions/veue1.html|title=A View of the Present State of Ireland|website=luminarium.org|access-date=5 February 2013|archive-date=3 April 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130403160134/http://www.luminarium.org/renascence-editions/veue1.html|url-status=live}}</ref></blockquote>The idea that the Irish ate shamrock is repeated in the writing of [[Fynes Moryson]], one-time secretary to the [[Lord Deputy of Ireland]]. In his 1617 work ''An itinerary thorow Twelve Dominions'', Moryson describes the "wild Irish", and in this case their supposed habit of eating shamrock is a result of their marginal hand-to-mouth existence as bandits. Moryson claims that the Irish "willingly eat the herbe Schamrock being of a sharpe taste which as they run and are chased to and fro they snatch like beasts out of the ditches." The reference to a sharp taste is suggestive of the bitter taste of wood sorrel.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Moryson |first=Fynes |url=https://archive.org/details/fynesmorysons04moryuoft |title=The Itinerary of Fynes Moryson in Four Volumes, Volume IV |year=1617 |location=Glasgow |page=200 |language=en}}</ref>

What is clear is that by the end of the sixteenth century the shamrock had become known to English writers as a plant particularly associated with the Irish, but only with a confused notion that the shamrock was a plant eaten by them. To a herbalist like Gerard it is clear that the shamrock is clover, but other English writers do not appear to know the botanical identity of the shamrock. This is not surprising, as they probably received their information at second or third hand. It is notable that there is no mention anywhere in these writings of St. Patrick or the legend of his using the shamrock to explain the Holy Trinity. However, there are two possible references to the custom of "drowning the shamrock" in "usquebagh" or [[whiskey]]. In 1607, the playwright [[Edward Sharpham]] in his play ''The Fleire'' included a reference to "Maister Oscabath the Irishman ... and Maister Shamrough his lackey".<ref>{{harvp|Nelson|1991|p=22}}</ref> Later, a 1630 work entitled ''Sir Gregory Nonsence'' by the poet [[John Taylor (poet)|John Taylor]] contains the lines: "Whilste all the Hibernian Kernes in multitudes, /Did feast with shamerags steeved in Usquebagh."<ref name="Taylor1622">{{cite book |author=Taylor |first=John |url=https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A13499.0001.001/1:6.2?rgn=div2;view=fulltext |title=Sir Gregory Nonsence His Newes from No Place |year=1630 |location=London |language=en |access-date=29 October 2023 |archive-date=29 October 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231029113901/https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A13499.0001.001/1:6.2?rgn=div2;view=fulltext |url-status=live }}</ref>