The Tragic Death of the Sons of Usnech

The Tragic Death of the Sons of Usnech, in the Ulster cycle of Irish heroic myths, the love story of the ill-fated Deirdre and Noísi. First composed in the 8th or 9th century, the story was revised and combined in the 15th century with The Tragic Death of the Children of Tuireann (Oidheadh Chloinne Tuireann) and The Tragic Death of the Children of Lir (Oidheadh Chloinne Lir) into The Three Sorrows of Storytelling (Trí Truaighe na Scéalaigheachta). The older version, preserved in The Book of Leinster (c. 1160) as Longes mac n-Uislenn (The Exile of the Sons of Uislin), is more starkly tragic, less polished, and less romantic than the later version.

The story opens with a Druid’s prediction at Deirdre’s birth that many men will die on her account. Raised in seclusion, she grows to be a woman of astonishing beauty. King Conor (Conchobar mac Nessa) falls in love with her, but she falls in love with Noísi (Middle Irish: Noísiu), a son of Usnech. Deirdre and Noísi elope and flee to Scotland with Noísi’s two brothers, where they live idyllically until they are lured back to Ireland by the treacherous Conor. The sons of Usnech are slain, causing revolt and bloodshed in Ulster. To avoid falling into Conor’s hands, Deirdre takes her own life. The later version of the story omits the first half and expands the tragic ending, in which Deirdre lives for a year with Conor, never smiling, before killing herself.

The story was immensely popular in Ireland and Scotland and survived to the 20th century in Scottish oral tradition. Its literary influence continued into the early 20th century, when Irish writers, notably William Butler Yeats and John Millington Synge, dramatized the theme.