This well-known Irish lament was composed orally by Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill (c. 1743- c. 1800) for her young husband Art Ó Laoghaire, who was murdered on 4 May 1773 near Carraig an Ime (Carriganima), Co. Cork. The two longest surviving versions were written down many years later from the oral dictations of Nóra Ní Shindile (Norrie Singleton), a known keening woman (bean chaointe) who died about 1870. In this opening section of the Caoineadh, the voice of Eibhlín Dubh resonates with the grief, love and anger felt upon the death of her husband—a grief expressed not through writing, but as Angela Bourke noted, ‘through the medium most readily available to women in the Irish-language tradition: the oral lament, composed in performance’ (The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing, Vol 4 (Cork, 2002), 1372). Variant versions in the surviving manuscripts show the fluidity of lament. We cannot speak of a ‘text’; rather, the surviving versions are representations of Eibhlín Dubh’s lament, recalled, adapted and imprinted upon the communal memory. Seán Ó Tuama’s Irish edition is selected here as one such representation. The English translation follows the translation published in An Duanaire 1600-1900: Poems of the Dispossessed, though I have made some changes in wording and have translated sections (iv) and (vi), which are not included in the anthology. The lament is recited by Professor Meidhbhín Ní Úrdail, an Irish speaker from Co. Cork.
