An Chraobh Airgid

Person

Oisín

Oisín

Fionn’s son, the poet of the Fianna, who went to Tír na nÓg and came home three hundred years too late.

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Son of Fionn mac Cumhaill and father of Oscar, he was the maker of poems of the Fianna. The Acallam na Senórach, written about 1200, names his mother as Blái daughter of Derc and has him outlive the Fianna to meet Patrick; in a tale Lady Gregory retold in 1904 she is Sadbh, a woman a druid had turned into a deer, and the Fianna find him as a wild boy on Binn Ghulbain. An Irish poem of about 1750 tells how Niamh took him over the sea to Tír na nÓg. James Macpherson made him famous across Europe in the 1760s as Ossian.

Kin and bonds

In the tales

  • The Colloquy of the Ancients The last two of the Fianna part in tears. One goes into a hill to his mother; the other finds Patrick blessing Fionn’s old fort, and tells him the story of every hill.
  • The Pursuit of Diarmuid and Gráinne Promised to the ageing Fionn, Gráinne puts the feast to sleep and lays a geis on Diarmuid to take her away. Fionn hunts them for sixteen years.
  • Oisín in Tír na nÓg Niamh of the Golden Head carries Fionn’s son away to the Land of the Young. Three hundred years go by like three, and then he asks to go home.

See also

  • Binn Ghulbain Benbulben. The Sligo mountain where Diarmuid met the boar.
  • Gleann an Smóil Glenasmole. The glen where Oisín lifted the stone, and fell.
  • Loch Léin Lough Leane. The lake at Killarney where Niamh found the Fianna hunting.

Sources

Medieval manuscript. Written down by Irish scholars between the eighth and seventeenth centuries.

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