The sections of the text are numbered to correspond with J. G. O'Keeffe's divisions in the Irish Texts Society edition.
Six stanzas have been dropped from Section 16, seven from Section 40, and one from Section 43. In the first case, the material omitted is historical allusion; in the second, obscurity defeated ingenuity; and in the third, I felt that the English poem came to rest better at the penultimate stanza.
Section 82 and the first fifteen stanzas of Section 83 have also been excluded. There an exchange occurs between Moling, Mongan, and Sweeney which is essentially a recapitulation and seemed to me to impede the momentum of the conclusion.
I have anglicized the name of Sweeney's kingdom, Dal Araidhe, to Dal-Arie, and in dealing with other place names have followed the suggestions in O'Keeffe's notes and index. In the following cases, where no help was offered, I took the liberty of inventing my own equivalents of the Irish: Kilreagan, Cloonkill, Kilnoo, Drumfree, Drumduff, Kilsooney, Doovey, Creegaille, Glasgally.
I am grateful for various encouragements and assistances offered by Dr Deirdre Flanagan, Henry Pearson, Colin Middleton and Professor Brendan McHugh.
