From the wife of the third Marquis of Landsdowne on a visit paid to Dereen a few weeks after the death of the last Finin Duibh 1809 :
"At the bottom of a conical hill was McFinninduff's house. He was the representative of the O'Sullivan Mores (sic) (who were princes of this part of Ireland) and had not long been dead. The moment one boat reached the land, all the inhabitants of the bay, who had assembled themselves on some high ground near the shore, began to howl and lament McFinnin and continued to bewail him the whole time we staid and till our boat was well out of sight. The howl is a most vivid and melancholy sound and impresses one with the idea of real sorrow in the people, and as we heard it at Kilmacalogue echoed by the rocks and softened by the distance nothing could be more striking and affecting."
---(From Diary of Louisa Lady Landsdowne, 1809)
It is reported that up to the death of the last Finin Duibh in 1809, his sister staged a competition in his honour for poetry.