Like Suibhne Geilt (‘Mad Sweeny’*) from Magh Rath in Co. Down, Guaire is from an age when the ancient order was changing and saw a flowering of the poetic order. It was perhaps because his durlas was a meeting place for poets that he was named Guaire the Hospitable. In a tale handed down from the seventh century it is said that after Seanchan Torpeist was elected to Ollamh (chief file or poet) of Ireland, he consulted with his fellow poets as to which king they should honour with their first or inaugural visit according to ancient custom, and they decided to visit Guaire. Thus, they visited Gort Insi Guaire (‘the field island of Guaire’), which is an accurate description of Guaire’s fortress at Kinvara, as the castle was on a small island just off the mainland in Kinvara Bay. Today there is a small causeway which leads to the island.
Seanchan took with him 150 poets, 150 pupils and a corresponding number of women – which follows the storytelling tradition of giving numbers in fifties. However, an ollamh was only entitled to a retinue of thirty, and this number was lowered to twenty-four at the Convention of Drom Ceat in 590 AD. Seanchan was well received by Guaire, of whom it is said that one of his arms was longer than the other, thus earning him the soubriquet ‘hospitable’. Seanchan was entitled to stay at the royal residence for ‘a year, a quarter and a month’. While he was at the king’s residence, a dish sent to his bedroom by his wife Brigit contained nothing but gnawed bones, and the servant said that this was due to rats. Here Seanchan used his power in verse to rhyme the vermin to death. The following is a translation by O’Curry of his rhyme:
Rats, though sharp their snouts,
Are not powerful in battles;
I will bring death on the party of them
For having eaten Brigit’s present.
Small was the present she made us,
Its loss to her was not great;
Let her have payment from us in a poem,
Let her not refuse the poet’s gratitude!
You rats which are in the roof of the house
Arise, all of you, and fall down.
Ten rats then fell dead from the roof, and Seanchan said that it was not the rats that should have been satirised but the cats for failing in their duty. He then satirised the chief of the cats who was said to reside in the cave of Knowth near Slane. However, regardless of the rats and the delightful setting, the poets became troublesome to the extent that the king’s brother, a hermit named Marbhan, put a geis or obligation on them to depart and to devote themselves to the discovery of the ancient tale of the Táin Bó Cúailnge.* Seanchan Torpeist was aggrieved at this and on his departure presented a short farewell poem to Guaire.
We depart from thee, O stainless Guaire!
We leave thee with our blessing;
A year, a quarter and a month,
Have we sojourned with thee, O high king!
Three times fifty poets, – good and smooth, –
Three times fifty students in the poetic art,
Each with his servant and dog;
They were all fed in one great house.
Each man had his separate meal;
Each man had his separate bed;
We never arose at early morning,
Without contentions without calming.
I declare to thee O God!
Who canst the promise verify,
That should we return to our own land,
We shall visit thee again, O Guaire, though now we depart.
[Translated by Eugene O’Curry]
Seanchan was later successful in retrieving the great epic of the Táin. He originally set out from Durlas Guaire in search of the epic to Scotland and then to the Isle of Man but had no success. He then returned to Ireland and went to St Caillin of Magh Rein in Leitrim, who was the poet’s brother, after which he went back to Durlas Guaire. In order to help them in their endeavour, Guaire sent for his brother Marbhan from his hermitage at Glenn-an Scail (‘the glen of the shadows’), now known as Gleananscaul [46], about two miles north of Oranmore. Marbhan arrived at Durlas Guaire and here they discussed the best way to recover the lost tale. Many saints went to the burial place of Fergus mac Roich, a prominent person in the tale, and through prayer persuaded God to raise him from the dead, and thus the tale was retrieved.
Guaire had a daughter named Créde who was in love with Dinertach of the Uí Fhidgente of east Limerick, who had come to support Guaire in his fight against Diarmait of the Uí Néill in the battle of Carn Conaill. A poem she composed, known as the ‘Song of Crédne, Daughter of Guaire’, was transcribed by Gilla Riabach mac Tuathail ui Chlérig who lived in the first half of the sixteenth century. Whether Dinertach was slain or survived this battle is not clear, but the poem tells us that he suffered seventeen wounds, which prompted Créde to keen the following:
It é saigdi goine súain
cech trát[h]a ind-oidc[h]I adhúair:
sercoi lie gnása íar ndé
fir a tóib tíri Roighne.
Rográd alathíre
romsíacht sech a comdíne:
rucc mo lí, ní lór do dath,
nímlécci do tindabrad.
Im-sa náidi rob-sa náir,
ní bind fri dula do dái:
óttalod I n-inderb n-aois,
romgab mo thédi toghaois.
Tathum cech maith la Guairi
lie rig nAidne n-adfúaire:
tocair mo menma óm thúathaib
isin iath I n Irlúachair.
Canair a n-íath Aidne áin
im thaobu Cilli Colmáin:
án breó des luimnech lechtach
dienad comainm Dínertach.
Cráidid mo chridhe cóinech,
a Chríst cáidh a forróidhedh:
it é soigde gona súain
cech trátha a n-oidchi adhúair.
These are the arrows that murder sleep at every hour in the bitter cold night: pangs of love throughout the day for the company of the man from the side of the land of Roigne.
Great love of a man of another land has come to me beyond all his mates: it has taken my bloom, no colour is left, it does not let me rest.
When I was a child, I was bashful, I was not used to go to a tryst; since I have come to an untried age, my wantonness has beguiled me.
I have every good with Guaire, the king of cold Aidne; but my mind has fallen away from my people to the meadow at Irluachair.
There is singing in the meadow of glorious Aidne around the sides of Cell Cholmain: glorious flame, lovely mantled, now sunk into the grave, the name of whom is Dinertach.
It wrings my pitiable heart, O chaste Christ, what has been sent to me: these are arrows that murder sleep at every hour in the bitter cold night.
[Translated by Kuno Meyer]
Gort, mentioned above, four miles from Lough Cutra [52], and between Lough Cutra and Derrybrien, is where the first resting place of Diarmuid* and Gráinne* was, namely Doire dhá Bhóth (‘the oak wood of the two bothys’), which was also known as Coill idir dhá mhaide (‘the hiding between the two woods’. The place-name