LS 1340 (Duanaire Thigh na Cille)

H.3.19.

LS 1340

POEMS

The following account is taken from Anne O’Sullivan, ‘The Tinnakill Duanaire’, Celtica 11 (1976) 214–228.

This Trinity College Dublin MS, 1340 (H. 3. 19), of the early seventeenth century is unusual for an Irish manuscript in being written on parchment (sheepskin). The final leaves are, however, of the more usual material, vellum (calfskin). It is complete apart from a single leaf missing between ff. 26 and 27 (pp. 50 and 51).¹ The collation, excluding the paper flyleaves added by George Mullen when he bound the book in 1830^†, is: flyleaf, I-III ⁶, the outer leaves of section II (ff. 8 and 13) are no longer conjoint, IV⁶⁺¹, V⁴, VI,² VII⁶ (vellum). Section VI appears to have the original flyleaves suggesting that the final vellum section, though partly in the hand of the main scribe, was added as an afterthought.²

The duanaire proper now consists of eighty-three bardic religious poems, it may originally have had eighty-five.³ The last poem ends in the middle of f. 29v (p. 56) the rest of which is vacant. F. 30 (p. 57) is a parchment flyleaf on the recto of which Brian Fitzpatrick entered a poem of his own composition⁴ while on a visit to Tinnakill, co. Leix, the castle of Aodh Buidhe mac Donnell⁵ on the 11 Jan. 1615 new style. ⁶ On the verso a large hand that appears again on a vellum page (f. 36 p. 65) copied two learned poems with a Leinster association.⁷ F. 31r (p. 59) is vacant apart from later scribbles but on the verso (p. 60) the scribe of the duanaire copied in the part of Giolla-na-naomh Ó Huidhrinn’s topographical poem dealing with Leinster.⁸

The items on the vellum leaves are of particular interest as they relate to the Mac Donnells the owners of the manuscript. As they have not yet been fully described I list them in some detail. The first four poems are in the hand of the scribe of the duanaire: Gnath Laidhnig . . . (fragmentary) (f. 33 p. 60^c)⁹ mentions Aodh mac an Chalbaigh and what can be read deals with his right to Mac Donnell revenues in Leinster. Le dís cuirther clú Laighen (f. 34 p. 61)¹⁰ attributed to Muircheartach Ó Cobhthaigh is for Aodh Buidhe and his brother Alexander whom it describes as the children of Calbhach and Gráinne. ¹¹ It mentions their forrays but Aodh Buidhe is given pride of place and the last four verses for Máire must be for his wife Mary O’Moore.¹² Do thogh me maicne Domhnaill (ib.) is for Fearadhach mac Toirrdhealbhaigh whose wife was Catherine daughter of Walter Bermingham and in whose veins ran the blood of an O’Rourke, an Ó Murchadha and an O’Conor but there is insufficient detail to deter­mine whether he is a Leinster or a Mayo Mac Donnell. The Leinster Mac Donnells descended from the Western Mac Donnells in the late fourteenth century.¹³ Dia dom feitheamh ar feirg nDé (f. 34^v p. 62) is a religious poem found also in the duanaire but unaccountably recopied here by the scribe. In another hand: normal Mac Donnell pedigrees (f. 35^r–v (pp. 63-64)) with a single correction to the Leinster line in the hand of Brian Fitzpatrick followed by a poem on the prerogatives of the Antrim Mac Donnells Cuimhnigh sochar síol gColla (f. 35^r–v pp. 63-64). ¹⁴ The large hand already mentioned reappears with two learned poems: Airgialla ardmora uaisle and Eisd re senchas síol gColla (f. 36^r–v pp. 65-66) on the connection of the Mac Donnells with their reputed ancestors the Collas.¹⁵

As the poems for Aodh Buidhe son of Calbhach are in the hand of the scribe of the duanaire we can safely assume that he was the patron for whom it was compiled. He was a member of a Leinster branch of the Mac Donnells, a hereditary family of gallowglass that went into the service of the Crown. ¹⁶ In 1562 Calbhach had a royal grant of the castle and lands of Tinnakill. ¹⁷ He died in 1570 in Connaught fighting for the Govern­ment against Mac William Burke of Mayo. Aodh Buidhe succeeded to the estate. His brother Alexander, who may have been his senior, was slain in 1577. Aodh Buidhe who married Mary O'Moore died on the 31st July 1619.

Brian Fitzpatrick who copied in his poem of farewell in Jan. 1614/15 was a member of the ruling Fitzpatrick family of Upper Ossory, a younger grandson of Brian first baron of Upper Ossory. ¹⁸ He was ordained in 1610¹⁹ and was about to leave Ireland to study theology at the time he wrote the poem. In style it is indistinguishable from his contemporary Giolla Brighde Ó Heodhusa’s, ²⁰ likewise setting out to study abroad, except that Brian mentions his relatives probably because of the importance of his family. They include his uncle Finghín, third baron of Upper Ossory, and his eldest son Tadhg who had enraged his father by favouring the Ulster leaders in the Nine years war. ²¹ Important neighbouring families mentioned include the Mac Donnells. He also greets his teachers by profession : leeches, musicians, poets, historians and ‘the goodly order that I loved’, presumably the Franciscans as the only other poem for which there is contemporary evidence of his authorship Saltair naRann (a metrical calendar of saints) shows Franciscan influence. ²² The poem is probably autograph as his colophon claims and it certainly was not written by any of the other hands in the manuscript. Having established this we can look afresh at his colophons in other manuscripts. Most important are two in transcripts of the Leabhar Branach (Book of the O’Byrnes) ²³ which the editor took to mean that Brian wrote the original manuscript though they merely state that the manuscript was at Castletown, a seat of Lord Upper Ossory, in 1622 when Brian saw it and that he copied in a poem for a sixteenth-century O’Byrne. A similar explanation would account for the heading to a group of three poems ²⁴ clearly not composed by Brian which was later copied into TCD MS 1361 (H. 4. 20) : ‘6 Nov. 1645 Killawardy (co. Tipperary) Brian Fitzpatrick’. Copying an occasional item into the manuscripts he found in the houses he visited would seem a more likely practice for a man of Brian’s standing than transcribing for a patron.²⁵

The manuscript provides no clue to the name of the scribe of our duanaire or to his place of writing. A very similar, but probably not the same hand, is employed in RIA MS 23 N 16 where among the notes is one telling that Brian Fitzpatrick will say his first mass on the morrow, 10 June, 1610. ²⁶ We know, however, that our manuscript was at Tinnakill in Jan. 1615 and another note tells that it was still at Tinnakill on the 27 Jan. 1631/32. ²⁷ After the war of 1641 the Mac Donnells lost their lands there. An inquisition taken in 1679 found that as James Mac Donnell of Tinnakill had joined the late rebellion in 1641 his lands had become forfeit to the Crown but that his widow, Margaret Mac Donnell, was allowed her dower. The Book of Survey and Distribution for Queen’s county shows how the confiscated lands were apportioned to some seven or eight different individuals, William Legatt getting Tinnakill.²⁸

Our manuscript seems to be the item listed by Theophilus O’Flanagan among the vellum Sebright manuscripts as ‘no. 20 Poems religious and historical’. This may never, like a number of other manuscripts included by O’Flanagan, have been Lhuyd’s.²⁹ The principal evidence suggesting it may not have belonged to Lhuyd is a scribbled poem that seems to be in Charles O’Conor’s hand. ³⁰ O’Conor is responsible for a number of notes in Lhuyd’s manuscripts when he had them on loan from Vallancey but this seems to be in a different category. Besides there are a number of other O’Conor scribbles: Denis Connor, Darbe Connor, John Connor, Charles Conor written as pen trials by children. ³¹ Charles’s father, Denis, married Mary O’Rourke, whose sister married a Mac Donnell and was mother of Captain Francis Mac Donnell who distinguished himself in the Austrian service at Cremona in 1702. Denis O’Conor was befriended by Counsellor Mac Donagh who strongly opposed the measures of the Patriot Parliament³² hence, perhaps, the anti-Jacobite note on f. 37^v (p. 69) ³³ which is rather a surprising thing to find in an Irish manuscript. Charles O’Conor may have sent our manuscript to Vallancey in error and hence its appearance in the Sebright collection.

The Tinnakill duanaire is one of the most important sources for bardic religious verse as it contains many unique poems and is the earliest witness for many others. For a few it is the only known link between earlier poems and nineteenth-century Ó Longáin copies. ³⁴ A search for sources has turned up indirect exemplars only. The oldest surviving duanaire of religious verse is in the late fourteenth-century Book of Uí Maine but our scribe did not use this unless an echo of it be seen in the inclusion of a poem by Ó Leannáin, probably the Maelmuire Ó Leannáin of the Book of Uí Maine. The next in time is the duanaire in the Yellow Book of Lecan transcribed in 1473 by Senchan mac Maelmuiri Uí Mhaoilchonaire ³⁵ and with this it shares five poems, four by Tadhg Óg and one by Tuathal Ó Huiginn. They are in a different order and there is no reason to think that they were copied directly from the Yellow Book of Lecan duanaire. RIA MS C ii 2(A) a fragment of a late fifteenth-century duanaire, however, mirrors in a most interesting way the Tinnakill duanaire. It is a vellum manuscript defective at the beginning and end, of unknown provenance but probably dateable to the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century. ³⁶

It is divided into four sections each written by a different scribe but unified by a series of elaborate initials unusual in quality for the period. If we can accept the evidence of the old foliation it has lost seventeen folios, but being also defective at the end the full extent of the lost leaves is undeterminable. It now contains twenty-three poems that are, with one exception, ³⁷ found in the Tinnakill duanaire though in a very different order, suggesting that the scribe did not copy directly from C ii 2. He must have had a good copy, however, as there are no important textual differences. ³⁸ It is possible that poems lost from C ii 2 might now be found in the Tinnakill duanaire. There is no positive evidence but some suggestions about this possibility can be made. The order of the poems shared between the two manuscripts is shown in an appendix. Curiously enough they occur, interspersed with other poems, in two separate areas of our manuscript. This grouping could be fortuitous but as many of the interspersed poems are almost indistinguishable in theme and treatment from the surviving poems in C ii 2 the arrangement may be significant. In selecting poems for his Philip Bocht Ó Huiginn ³⁹ Fr. Lambert Mac Kenna chose them from these areas of the Tinnakill duanaire. ⁴⁰ Philip Bocht was a Franciscan who died in 1487 but about whom nothing is otherwise known except a tradition that he was an outstanding religious poet. There is no contemporary evidence, however, for his authorship of any poem, C ii 2 has no ascriptions and having lost its beginning we cannot know whether it had a title. In later manuscripts, however, we find ascriptions of poems to Philip, four in the Tinnakill duanaire being the earliest. ⁴¹ It was probably in those ascribed that Fr. Lambert found his criteria for judging that other poems were also by Philip Bocht. He seems to have used his criteria rather arbitrarily, however, as other poems in these areas, not included in his published selection, would fit equally well. ⁴² The two areas form a homogeneous group⁴³ and perhaps mirror the originally complete C ii 2. ⁴⁴ It is highly improbable, however, that C ii 2 originally included only Philip Bocht’s poems as it would be contrary to tradition to include the works of one poet only in a duanaire. It was probably designed as an anthology of more or less contemporary poems ⁴⁵ reflecting the religious ideals of the Observant Reform which had taken firm root in Ireland, especially in the Gaelic areas, in the later fifteenth century. ⁴⁶

Although the last C ii 2 poem in the first area of our MS ends on f. llr (p. 33) I have extended this ‘C’ area to f. 12^v (p. 36) because the next three poems are similar to the C ii 2 poems and because on the lower half of f. 12^v there is a distinct change of type with Gofraidh Fionn Ó Dálaigh’s popular poem Mairg mheallus muirn an tsaoghail as if the scribe had changed to a new source. The following eighteen poems⁴⁷ show much variety in date and theme and among them are the five Uí Huiginn poems found in the YBL duanaire; the Ó Leannáin poem whose subject so closely resembles Maelmuire Ó Leannáin’s in the Book of Uí Maine;⁴⁸ two poems by Dondchadh Mór Ó Dálaigh, ⁴⁹ one of which is otherwise found in a group of four disarranged religious poems now bound in with TCD MS 1337 (H. 3. 18) and in an Ó Longáin MS. The second is the poem so curiously recopied in the vellum section of our manuscript and of which the only other known copy is in RIA MS 23 D 14 (17th cent. King’s co.) best known for its collection of poems by Ó Cobhthaigh poets of co. Meath⁵⁰ one of whom wrote the poem for Aodh Buidhe Mac Donnell. There is also a seemingly unique poem on the feast of Corpus Christi,⁵¹ a poem on Holy Cross Abbey, co. Tipperary and its famous relic⁵² and what is perhaps the finest poem in the duanaire, Maeleachluinn Ó Huiginnn's Táinig an tráth nóna which may be based on a Latin original⁵³. The two latter poems are found again only in nineteenth century Ó Longáin manuscripts. Noticeable about the poems in this group is the number ascribed to specific authors⁵⁴ and the fact that, unlike those of the C ii 2 series, they tend to reappear in later manuscripts.

Seven Marian poems follow similar in treatment to those ascribed to Aonghus Fionn Ó Dálaigh. None has been traced to an earlier source and four are now unique. These I regard as a distinct group. Next comes the second area of C ii 2 poems and here again, although the last poem from C ii 2 is on f. 24 ^v (p. 46), I have extended the area to f. 26^v (p. 50) because of the probability that the only poem from C ii 2 not in the Tinnakill duanaire may have been on the leaf missing between ff. 26 and 27 and because the intervening poems are unique to Tinnakill and markedly similar to poems in C ii 2. Finally there are twelve poems that do not fit into any simple grouping, some are not dissimilar to C ii 2 poems,⁵⁵ some are Marian, ⁵⁶ while one early poem, also popular in later manuscripts, is found in the Liber Hymnorum.⁵⁷

Compared with other duanaires of about this time such as the important duanaire compiled at Ostend in 1631 for Captain Samhairle Mac Donnell, of the Antrim family,⁵⁸ Aodh Buidhe's is unusual in being exclusively religious while the other patrons chose religious and secular poems in almost equal proportions. Reflecting primarily as it does the ideals of the Observant Reform an ecclesiastic would seem a more fitting patron for the Tinnakill duanaire than a Constable of Gallowglass but I have been unable to trace one with likely connections as the only cleric known to be involved, Brian Fitzpatrick and his link with the Franciscans, must come later. It was certainly intended for edification and when read out in the hall of Tinnakill Aodh Buidhe and his family would have heard many fine poems such as :

Do-bhéarad sin srotha
ag snighi asna súilibh ;
nach é an trátsain tiaghair
fa ghrátsaibh Dé dúiligh?

where the poet finely renders the words of the Psalmist: ‘a meek and contrite heart thou wilt not despise’.⁵⁹ Muircheartach Ó Cobhthaigh's lilted roll of Aodh Buidhe’s military exploits ⁶⁰ would have flattered the family pride :

Tuilid Aodh ' san cm caoilsleg
clú nach baoghal do bhádhadh,
luth a ghreadh co fuar d’féghadh
ag téghadh gruadh fer náladh.

not so elegantly rendered as:

Surrounded by slender-shafted spears
Aodh won undying fame,
and saw the charge of his cavalry
mangling the faces of wounded men.

The Constable’s descendants fought for the Confederates in the war of 1641 and lost Tinnakill but Aodh Buidhe’s duanaire fortunately survived to reflect for us the last century of the old order and in particular the ‘Bardic-Franciscan’ tradition in early seventeenth-century Leinster.

APPENDIX

The following is a list of the poems in the Tinnakill duanaire according to the correct order of the manuscript. The groupings mentioned in the article are : I (first C ii 2 area)*; II (earlier poems) ; III (Marian poems) ; IV (second C ii 2 area) ; V (mixed). A list of other manuscripts in which the poems occur is given* to show their relative popularity in the general tradition and to give an idea of the type of bardic poem that continued to interest and to mould devotional taste.

* An asterisk marks poems unique to the Tinnakill duanaire and a cross those shared with C ii 2 to give an idea of the cohesion of the two C ii 2 areas.

† The list of MSS is based on published initia. Doubtless other copies of these poems will turn up but I do not think that this will materially alter the present picture.

Footnotes

*: Tigh na Coille, a castle in the parish of Coolbanagher, bar. of Portnahinch, co. Leix.
† The manuscript was re-backed in 1935.