“Ceann Dubh Dilis”
Augusta Gregory (1852–1932)
“Ceann Dubh Dilis”
English translation with Irish above
ca. 1901
Gregory began learning Irish systematically in late 1897, following a visit to Coole by Douglas Hyde, author of the seminal essay “The Necessity for De-Anglicising Ireland.” She was elected to the Council of the Gaelic League in acknowledgement of her efforts for the revival of the language. After having her earliest translations checked by Hyde and others, she quickly grew in confidence and facility, becoming a good functional Irish speaker and skilled translator. Along with collecting folktales, she made particular efforts to gather and transcribe Irish songs. This manuscript, showing Gregory’s Irish script with English below, features the 18th-century song “Ceann Dubh Dilis” (“Dear Dark Head”), already well known in a version translated by poet Samuel Ferguson in the 1860s.
: Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature
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