Duanaire Finn

Duanaire Finn [Ir. duanaire, verse anthology, maker or reciter of verses]. Usual title for a huge compilation of Fenian verse made at Louvain (Belgium) in 1626–7, the English for which is ‘The Poem Book of Fionn’ or ‘The Book of the Lays of Fionn’. Many poems are ascribed to Fionn's persona while others are attributed to Oisín, Fionn's son, or take a Fenian setting amidst wild nature. Major themes are the celebration of nature and disputation with Christian repression of paganism. The verse derives from both the older, learned scribal tradition and also from the later, popular oral tradition; composed in Ireland, it was carried to the Catholic areas of the Netherlands at the flight of the Irish aristocracy (‘Flight of the Earls’, 1607–). An Irish mercenary in the Thirty Years War, Captain Somhairle Mac Domhnaill [Sorley MacDonnell], commissioned the compilation by the scribes, reputedly headed by Aodh Ó Dochartaigh, otherwise called Don Hugo Doharty. The manuscript is preserved in the Franciscan Library, Dublin. The Irish Texts Society published the text in three volumes, nos. 7, 28, and 43 of the series, over forty-five years: vol. i, ed. Eóin MacNeill (Dublin, 1908), vol. ii, ed. Gerard Murphy (Dublin, 1933), and vol. iii, ed. Gerard Murphy (Dublin, 1953). Gerard Murphy's 112-page introduction to the third volume contains a key study of Fenian literature.