SOURCE: McFate, Patricia Ann. “James Stephens's Deirdre and Its Legendary Sources.” Eire Ireland 4, no. 3 (1969): 87–93.

In the following essay, McFate identifies the Irish legends that inspired Stephens's story of Deirdre and how he changed them to suit his own purposes.

While most readers owe their knowledge of the Deirdre legend to the works of W. B. Yeats, John Synge, James Stephens, and George Russell,¹ the critics who have examined these literary versions have frequently been concerned with how unlike the ancient sources they really are. Even those who cite the works as representative of the Irish Literary Revival consider them as outside of or in opposition to the Gaelic legends themselves.

This is particularly ironic in the case of James Stephens's novel, Deirdre. In a letter to W. T. H. Howe, Stephens referred to the novel as “the first book (complete in itself) of a story in 5 volumes to...