Observations on the manuscript sources for the Dánta grá

Abstract

This paper identifies the manuscript sources of the hundred and six dánta grá (love poems) edited by Tomás Ó Rathile in Dánta Grádha (1926). The contexts of the poems in the earlier manuscript sources (i.e. manuscripts written up to the beginning of the eighteenth century) are discussed, with particular emphasis on those manuscripts in which dánta grá and other poems on love or related themes are written together in clusters. Some general observations on the manuscript transmission of the poems are offered also.