THE DONEGAL POEMS IN THE BOOK OF FENAGH

Abstract

The extant Book of Fenagh, written in 1516, contains not only a verse and prose 'Life' of St Caillin of Fenagh but some additional poems from the lost 'Old Book of St Caillin' which are more relevant to the politics of Tir Conaill during the eleventh to the early-thirteenth centuries than to St Caillin and the church of Fenagh. This article argues that these poems may have originated with the churches of Kilmacrenan, Drumleene and Derry and that they belong to an earlier period than the prophecies concerning the mid-thirteenth-century ? Domhnaill chieftains found in the verse material directly associated with St Caillin in the same manuscript. The poems to be discussed are listed in an appendix at the end of this article. Their metrical form is loose, so that they could be seen as pre-dating the emergence of the strict metrical forms of dan direach or simply as writ ten in the less-demanding mode of oglachas favoured by non-professional versifiers. Their linguistic date is, I understand, vague?approximately late Middle or Early Classical Irish, with perhaps some scribal modernisations introduced in the course of transmission, but their contents are concerned with political and territorial claims of the kings of Tir Conaill and the ? Domnaill chiefs of Cenel Luigdech in the north of Tir Conaill, relevant to the period from the eleventh to the early-thirteenth centuries. Seven of them are inserted rather incongruously at the end of the Book of Fenagh (RIA MS 23 P 26), which is otherwise a prose and verse anthology devoted to the life, miracles, prophecies and financial claims of St Caillin of Fenagh, in the present county Leitrim. This manuscript, which now goes by the name of the Book of Fenagh, was compiled by Muirghius mac Ph?idin Ui Mhaoil Chonaire in 1516 AD, according to two informative colophons in the scribe's own hand.1 ? Maoil Chonaire tells us his work had been com missioned by Tadhg ? Rodaighe (al. '? Rodach?in'), the comharba 'coarb', or lay abbot, of the church of Fenagh. At that time ? Rodaighe already possessed an ancient book (now lost) which is referred to on a number of I wish to acknowledge the assistance of the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences (IRCHSS), whose award of a Senior Research Fellowship in 2007-8 has afforded me the opportunity to write up a number of projects, including the present paper. 1 am also most grateful to Mr Thomas G. Cannon for reading a first draft of this paper and making a number of helpful suggestions, in particular drawing my attention to the 1981 article on this topic by Seamus Boyle, cited below. 1 W.M. Hennessy and Denis Kelly (eds), The Book of Fenagh (Dublin, 1875, repr. Irish Manuscript Commission, with supplementary volume of commentary by R.A.S. Macalister, 2 vols, Dublin, 1939; hereafter cited as Bk Fen. and Bk Fen. supp.), 310-11,414-15. DOI: 10.3318/ERIU.2008.58.37 Eriu lviii (2008) 37-53 ? Royal Irish Academy This content downloaded from 157.55.39.185 on Thu, 26 May 2016 04:59:35 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms