This is a reprint, with a new cover design, of the anthology which became an immediate best seller when it was published in 1981 and of which the critics wrote, ‘An act of creativity that is wholly successful and an act of reclamation that helps to explain our present cultural and historical confusion.’ (Brian Friel) . . . ‘a magnificient book. I cannot think of any venture in Irish publishing of recent years so high in its ideals and achievement, so deep in its scholarship and enthusiasm, so broad in its range and appeal.’ (Paul Muldoon, The Irish Times) . . . ‘a large and worthwhile undertaking, diligently and often triumphantly carried out . . . invaluable to every student of Irish literature; and, with its inclusion of so much unfamiliar material, instructive and absorbing to everyone else.’ (Patricia Craig, The New York Review of Books).

The primary purpose of An Duanaire is to demonstrate the nature and quality of the Irish poetic tradition during the troubled centuries from the collapse of the Gaelic order to the emergence of English as the dominant vernacular of the Irish people. Thomas Kinsella’s English translations, all new, aim at a close fidelity to the content of the originals, while suggesting something of the poetic quality, and the basic rhythms, of the original Irish poems.

Daoine a bhfuil Nua-Ghaeilge éigin acu is mó a bhainfidh leas as an saothar seo. Is é atá sna haistriúcháin ná téacsanna a léifí bonn ar bhonn leis na buntéacsanna, agus a bheadh ina gcabhair dóibh siúd ar mhaith leo tuiscint níos cruinne a fháil ar an dánta Gaeilge . . . ‘Mar ghníomh creidimh I bhfilíocht Ghaeilge na tréimhse sin ina bhfuil ár scoilteacha cultúir lonnaithe, agus i leanúnachas traidisiún na filíochta Gaeilge, is cloch mhíle an-tábhachtach An Duanaire.’ (Liam Ó Muirthile, Innti 6).

‘An Duanaire is a re-education in our poetry, a recuperative event. The range is great, in time and substance . . . Seán Ó Tuama and Thomas Kinsella have given a book of great worth and importance, one that could mark an epoch . . . a whole thing that is, as the best judges have always believed poetry should be, dulce et utile.’ (Seamus Heaney, The Sunday Tribune).