Irish Sagas is a collection of twelve essays, each by a different Irish scholar, each discussing a different traditional Irish tale. The essays were originally broadcast as radio lectures on Radio Éireann (in, I'm presuming, the 1950's and 1960's), which means that they are aimed at a general audience, albeit one that is presumed to have some basic knowledge of Irish literature, rather than at a scholarly audience. This makes the essays surprisingly readable, even today, and that, combined with the frequent use of phrases such as "a play which you have probably seen performed at the Abbey Theatre" and "as you probably remember learning in school", gives the essays a friendly, charming feel. These are not in-depth analyses of the tales, but they do provide a basic introduction to the manuscripts in which the tales are written, the possible origins of the tales, their relationships with other tales, and the ways in which the tales were taken up by later generations of Irish storytellers. Most of the essays do provide a brief synopsis of the tales being discussed, but a basic familiarity with Irish literature, particularly with the Mythological Cycle and the Ulster Cycle, is recommended. Many of the essays also touch a bit on the deeper meanings of the tales, and the ways in which certain elements within them may represent survivals from pagan times, but again, this is not in-depth. Overall, although Irish Sagas may be a bit dated, it still provides a decent introduction to traditional Irish literature, in a readable, non-scholarly format. ( )