CAHSS Faculty Articles
Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh as Lover and Tragic Hero
ORCID ID
0000-0002-4966-1251
Publication Title
Béaloideas
ISSN
0332-270X
Publication Date
1983
Abstract
In the several versions of the folktale, Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh possesses a ball seirce, or 'love spot', which causes women to fall in love with him. As Dáithí Ó hÓgáin has pointed out, this tradition links Cearbhall with such figures as Diarmaid Ó Duibhne, the hero of the Early Modern Irish romance, Tóruigheacht Dhiarmada agus Ghráinne [TDG] ('The Pursuit of Dhiarmaid and Gráinne').1 In TDG, Diarmaid is described as: 'the white-toothed, bright-countenanced,...the best beloved of women and maidens in the whole of Ireland.'2 In the 17th-century tale, Eachtra Lomnochtáin an tSéibhe Riffe ('The Adventure with the Naked Savage from the Riffe Mountains'), he is referred to as 'Diarmaid na mBan' ('of the women'), an epithet also frequently applied to him in Irish folk tradition. The same epithet is applied to Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh in the headnotes to several manuscripts of the poem beginning, 'Im leaba araoir do shileas féin ag teacht.'3
DOI
10.2307/20522210
Volume
51
First Page
11
Last Page
30
NSUWorks Citation
Doan, J. E. (1983). Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh as Lover and Tragic Hero. Béaloideas, 51, 11-30. https://doi.org/10.2307/20522210
