Caoineadh Airt Uí Laoghaire

Caoineadh Airt Uí Laoghaire or the Lament for Art Ó Laoghaire is an Irish keen composed in the main by Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill, a member of the Gaelic gentry in the 18th century, who was born in County Kerry and lived near Macroom, County Cork, after her marriage to Art. The caoineadh has been described as the greatest poem written in either Ireland or Britain during the eighteenth century.

Eibhlín composed it on the subject of the death of her husband Art on 4 May 1773. It concerns the murder at Carraig an Ime, County Cork, of Art, at the hands of the Irish MP Abraham Morris, and the aftermath. It is one of the key texts in the corpus of Irish oral literature. The poem was composed extempore and follows the rhythmic and societal conventions associated with keening and the traditional Irish wake respectively. The Caoineadh is divided into five parts composed in the main over the dead body of her husband at the time of the wake and later when Art was re-interred in Kilcrea.

Parts of the Caoineadh take the form of a verbal duel between Eibhlín and Art's sister. The acrimonious dialogue between the two women shows the disharmony between their two prominent families.

Thomas Kinsella made an English verse translation which was published in a bilingual anthology, An Duanaire - Poems of the Dispossessed: an anthology of Gaelic poems, edited by Seán Ó Tuama (Dolmen Press, Portlaoise 1981 ISBN 0-85105-363-7). Another verse translation was the work of Frank O'Connor and this was included in Brendan Kennelly's anthology The Penguin Book of Irish Verse (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970; pp. 78–86). Doireann Ní Ghríofa published her own translation at the end of her work “A Ghost in the Throat” (Tramp Press, 2020).