Buile Suibhne – (The Frenzy of Suibhne) Being The Adventures of Suibhne Geilt – A Middle Irish Romance

Cur síos

J. G. O’Keeffe (foilsithe den chéad uair / first published 1913)

xxxVIII + 198 pp. ISBN 1 870 16612 4

This tale is the product of a late twelfth-century monastic scriptorium, possibly that of Armagh. Whoever its author may have been, he brought together a number of traditions to form a coherent and highly artistic composition, the verse of which has been described by Joseph Falaky Nagy, who provided a new introduction in 1996, as ‘a remarkable adventure in the inner workings of the persona of the poet as he vacillates between power and powerlessness’. As several modern literary works, among others by Flann O’Brien, Seán Ó Tuama and Séamus Heaney, show, Suibhne’s remarkable adventure continues to inspire. J. G. O’Keeffe provided the only full modern edition of this very influential text.
This volume contains a new introduction by Joseph Falaky Nagy (1996)