Buile Shuibne

Buile Shuibne (Frenzy of Sweeney).Generally regarded as a 12th-cent. text, it is preserved in three manuscripts, the earliest of which can be dated to between 1671 and 1674. The events of Buile Shuibne follow on from the battle of Mag Rath (Moira) [see Cath Maige Rath]. Driven mad by the din of battle, because of a curse by a cleric named Rónán, Suibne takes to the wilderness, where he spends many years naked, living in tree-tops, bemoaning his fate, celebrating nature in haunting lyrical verse, intermittently recovering his sanity, and finally settling at Teach Moling [St Mullins] in Co. Carlow. The mood of the story is penitential, the theme concerns transitional states. It continues to inspire Irish writers, notably Flann O'Brien in At Swim-Two-Birds (1939), Seamus Heaney in Sweeney Astray (1983), and Cathal Ó Searcaigh.