2008/01/01 by Katharine Simms · 1 citation
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #Historical Studies of British Isles #Irish and British Studies #Writ #Poetry #Eleventh #Extant taxon #Literature #Period (music) #History #Irish #Politics #Classics #Ancient history #Art #Philosophy #Law #Linguistics
paper · doi:10.3318/eriu.2008.58.37
openalex publication_date 2008/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
The extant Book of Fenagh, written in 1516, contains not only a verse and prose 'Life' of St Caillín of Fenagh but some additional poems from the lost 'Old Book of St Caillín' which are more relevant to the politics of Tír Conaill during the eleventh to the early-thirteenth centuries than to St Caillín 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 Ó Domhnaill chieftains found in the verse material directly associated with St Caillín in the same manuscript.