CARNEY, James. Poems on the O’Reillys.

Dublin: The Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1950. pp. xv, 315. Red cloth, title in gilt on spine. A fine copy in frayed dust jacket.
In his introduction the editor relates: “The present volume contains the extant remains of that type of verse usually called ‘bardic’ addressed to various members of the O’Reilly family of East Bréifne or County Cavan. Also in this collection are some poems to members of the same family in the accentual metres of the seventeenth century, and others of the same period more or less in syllabic metres, but written by poets who were no longer in touch with the strict traditions of the poetic schools.

The O’Reilly family is particularly fortunate in the extent to which its traditions, consisting of genealogies, anecdotes, and annals, have been preserved. It is hoped in the near future to produce a volume containing this miscellaneous material. Meanwhile, however, I give here a pedigree based on those materials, and on the Annals of the Four Masters, which will enable the reader immediately to grasp the relationship of the principal figures to whom poems are addressed”.

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