Coire Sois, The Cauldron of Knowledge: A Companion to Early Irish Saga

The Pursuit of Diarmaid and Gráinne

The Pursuit of Diarmaid and Gráinne ( t r a n s l a t e d b y t h e a u t h o r , 2 0 1 1 ) Tóraíocht Dhiarmada agus Ghráinne is the most celebrated tale of the Fenian Cycle, and probably the one that is most enjoyed. The tale’s origins lie in the distant past:“the tradition of Diarmaid and Grainne descends in an unbroken line from the ninth century to the present day”(Schoepperle 1913,395). Modern Irish, however, is the language of the earliest extant version of the tale.The earliest copy is preserved in Royal IrishAcademy manuscript 24 P 9, written by the renowned scribe Dáibhí Ó Duibhgeannáin in the year 1651. Gerard Murphy (1955b, 14) says that the tale as we have it may not be much earlier than that date.A large number of copies were subsequently made of the Tóraíocht; at least forty survive that were made between the years 1718 and 1850 (Ní Shéaghdha 1967, xv). The Ossianic Society published Standish Hayes O’Grady’s edition of the Tóraíocht in 1855: O’Grady drew on two manuscripts written respectively in 1780 and 1842–43 (O’Grady 1857, 466 30). What has become of the first of these in the meantime is not known; as for the second, we have a manuscript of the Tóraíocht in the same hand, but this does not seem to be the one used by O’Grady (Ní Shéaghdha 1967, xiv). The Irish Texts Society published Nessa Ní Shéaghdha’s edition of the Tóraíocht in 1967; it is based on Ó Duibhgeannáin’s manuscript, but draws when necessary on five other manuscripts. Ní Shéaghdha’s edition is very much better than O’Grady’s,but she is characteristically kind in her remarks about that pioneering scholar:“The need for a new edition,based on manuscript material now available, has been felt for a long time, and although it is possible to improve on O’Grady’s text, owing to his vagueness in the discussion of sources, nevertheless his English rendering of the story will always remain, for one in particular, a delight to read”(Ní Shéaghdha 1967, ix). The story of Diarmaid and Gráinne lived on in oral tradition; the oral versions are discussed by Ní Shéaghdha (1967, xviii–xxvi) and Bruford (1969, 106–9). Bruford (1969, 106) remarks:“Stories about Diarmaid and Gráinne are found in oral tradition, localized in different parts of Ireland and Scotland: but their relationship to the romance Tóraidheacht Dhiarmada agus Ghráinne is not always easy to determine.” Flower (1926, 387) suggested that the Tóraíocht may have been composed by a Munsterman: “The romantic tale is apparently a late medieval development of the theme, possibly based on the lost early tale and composed, if the topography may be used in evidence, in Munster.” For Bruford (1969, 106), Flower’s Munsterman has become a Kerryman: “Though the author [of the Tóraíocht] may have been a Kerryman (Flower 1926, 387) the story, like the Ulster Cycle tales, seems to have been less popular in Kerry than in other areas: it may not be too much to suggest that most Kerry storytellers preferred stories more like international märchen and avoided those with a tragic flavour.” The storytellers, and the people, made the story of Diarmaid and Gráinne their own: Local traditions about Diarmaid and Gráinne seem to have extended throughout the West of Scotland and Ireland from Cape Wrath to Cape Clear. Diarmaid’s death is associated as in the literary tradition with Beann Gulban, Benbulben in Co. Sligo, but also with a Scottish mountain of the same name, Ben Gulabin in Perthshire. Other oral accounts place it on Ben Loyal in Sutherland (S1), Benmore (Skye? The Pursuit of Diarmaid and Gráinne 467 468 THE FENIAN CYCLE LNF: 164), Ben Nevis (A3), Mangerton Mountain in Kerry (C2), in Lismore (A6) or at Kanturk in Co.Cork (C1),whose name Ceann Tuirc, “Boar’s Head,” suggests a connection with the boar which killed Diarmaid . The lovers’flight is also part of universal tradition: any dolmen in Ireland is liable to be called the bed of Diarmaid and Gráinne . . . and oral versions of the romance locate the wood...