Lament for Art O’Leary

250 years ago today, 4th May 1773, a tragic event triggered the creation of one of the most important works of Irish Literature: The Lament for Art O’Leary.

Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill was born into the Gaelic gentry in Kerry. As with many other families in Ireland at the time they had to negotiate the Penal Laws imposed on them. This was a dangerous life, even for an accommodated family like Eibhlín’s one was. She married for the second time to Art O’Leary from another prominent family who had made his fame in the European armies of Empress María Teresa. Eibhlín and Art O’Leary lived in county Cork where he got involved in a feud with one Irish MP Abraham Morris. Morris got him killed. 

Eibhlín subsequently composed her famous lament in his funeral. The poem was composed extempore and followed the formal structure of Irish keening. The quality of the work and the wake of Irish nationalist movements both contributed to keep the Lament alive, which was passed on generation after generation.

The wonderful translation of the poem by Carmel Cummins was my introduction to the work. Carmel is a local poet in my village to whom I am most grateful for opening that door.

Almost immediately after reading it for the first time, I felt compelled to do a short graphic adaptation of it. Since then, I have been completing a number of illustrations with the idea of giving a new graphic context to the poem. Here you can see some of it. 

I hope you like it and it makes you discover this wonderful work of Irish Literature if you don’t know it yet.