DEIRDRE

Deirdre: translation

IrishandEnglish: name borne inCelticlegend by a tragic heroine, sometimes referred to as ‘Deirdre of the Sorrows’. The story goes that she was betrothed to Conchobhar, King of Ulster, but instead eloped with her beloved Naoise. Eventually, however, the jilted king murdered Naoise and his brothers, and Deirdre herself died of a broken heart. She is sometimes taken as symbolic of the fate of Ireland underEnglishrule, but this has not stopped her name's being used byEnglishparents with noCelticblood in them. It became popular in Ireland and elsewhere in the Edwardian era, following retellings of the legend by both the poet W. B. Yeats (1907) and the playwright J. M. Synge (1910). The name itself is of uncertain derivation; the earliestCelticforms are very variable.