Owen Roe O'Sullivan
Encyclopedia
Eoghan Rua Ó Súilleabháin (1748 – 29 June 1782), anglicized as Owen Roe O'Sullivan ("Red Owen"), was an Irish
poet
.
Ó Súilleabháin is known as one of the last great Gaelic
poets. A recent anthology of Irish-language poetry speaks of his "extremely musical" poems full of "astonishing technical virtuosity" and also notes that "Eoghan Rua is still spoken of and quoted in Irish-speaking districts in Munster
as one of the great wits and playboys of the past."
Eoghan Rua was relatively unknown to English speakers until 1924, although famous among Irish-speakers, especially in Munster. In a 1903 book, Douglas Hyde
, an Irish scholar from Roscommon who had learned Irish, referred to him as "a schoolmaster named O'Sullivan, in Munster" in his book The Songs of Connacht (which includes a drinking song by Ó Súilleabháin). The 1911 version of the Encyclopædia Britannica mentioned Eoghan Rua in an article on "Celtic Literature," calling him "the cleverest of the Jacobite poets" and noting that "his verses and bons mots are still well known in Munster."
In 1924, Daniel Corkery devoted a chapter of his groundbreaking book The Hidden Ireland (1924) to Eoghan Rua Ó Súilleabháin. The book was the first comprehensive look at the world of Irish-speakers during the 18th century, a period which had been considered completely barren except for English-language literature.
Corkery writes, "'What Pindar is to Greece, what Burns is to Scotland... that and much more is Eoghan Ruadh to Ireland.' Alas! it is by no means so; but were Father Dinneen to write: "that and much more was Eoghan Ruadh to Gaelic Munster," he would have understated rather than overstated the matter." He then discussed at length the way country people came alive at the mention of Ó Súilleabháin's name, and could recite long poems and a hundred stories about him.
"Eoghan Rua's life was ... tragic, but then he was a wastrel with a loud laugh." Ó Súilleabháin is most famous for his aisling
[pron. "ashling"] poems, in which the vision of a beautiful woman comes to the poet in his sleep—the woman also often symbolizing the tragic Ireland
of his time. Most of the following information comes from Corkery's work. Corkery in his turn depended on a book in the Irish language, Amhráin Eoghain Ruaidh Uí Shúilleabháin, or Songs of Eoghan Rua Ó Súilleabháin, written by the priest An t-Athair Pádraig Ua Duinnín (Father Dinneen).
, a mountainous part of County Kerry
, in southwestern Ireland. He was from a once-prominent sept
that like so many others gradually lost its land and its leaders in the successive British conquests of Ireland. By the time of his birth, most of the native Irish in the southwest had been reduced to landless poverty in a "houseless and unpeopled," mountainous region. But the landlord was MacCarthy Mór, one of the few native Irish Chiefs of the Name
to have retained some power, and a distant relative of the Ó Súilleabháin sept; and in Sliabh Luachra there was at the time one of the last "classical schools" of Irish poetry
, descended from the ancient, rigorous schools that had trained bards and poets in the days of Irish domination. In these last few remnants of the bardic schools, Irish poets competed for attention and rewards, and learned music, English, Latin and Greek.
Eoghan Rua (the Rua refers to his red hair) was witty and charming, but had the misfortune to live at a time when an Irish Catholic had no professional future in his own country because of the anti-Catholic Penal Laws. He also had a reckless character and threw away the few opportunities he was given. At eighteen, he opened his own school, and "all his life through, whenever his fortunes were hopeless, on this empty trade Eoghan was to fall back." But "an incident occurred, nothing to his credit, which led to the break-up of his establishment."
Eoghan Rua then became a spalpeen [Irish spailpín], or itinerant farm worker, until he was 31 years old. He then was forced to join the army under interesting circumstances. Ó Súilleabháin was then working for the Nagle family, a wealthy Anglo-Irish
, but Catholic and Irish-speaking, family in Fermoy
, County Cork
. (The Nagles were themselves an unusual family. The mother of British politician Edmund Burke
was one of these Nagles, as was Nano Nagle
, the founder of the charitable Presentation
order of nuns.) Corkery writes, "I have had it told to myself that one day in their farmyard he heard a woman, another farm-hand, complain that she had need to write a letter to the master of the house, and had failed to find anyone able to do so. "I can do that for you," Eoghan said, and though misdoubting, she consented that he should. Pen and paper were brought him, and he sat down and wrote the letter in four languages—in Greek, in Latin, in English, in Irish. "Who wrote this letter?" the master asked the woman in astonishment; and the red-headed young labourer was brought before him; questioned, and thereupon set to teach the children of the house....Owing to his bad behavior he had to fly the house, the master pursuing him with a gun." Legend says he was forced to flee when he got a woman pregnant-- some say it was Mrs. Nagle. (see Suantraí dá Mhac Tabhartha
, which may relate to this incident).
was then in the midst of the American Revolutionary War
, using impressment
to fill its dire need for sailors. Ó Súilleabháin soon found himself aboard a British ship in the West Indies, "one of those thousands of barbarously mistreated seamen." He sailed under Admiral Sir George Rodney and took part in the famous 1782 sea Battle of the Saintes
, against the French admiral Comte de Grasse. The British won. To ingratiate himself with the Admiral, Ó Súilleabháin wrote an English-language poem called Rodney's Glory about the battle and presented it to the Admiral, who offered to promote him. Ó Súilleabháin asked to be set free from service, but "an officer named MacCarthy, a Kerryman...interposed and said: 'Anything but that; we would not part from you for love or money.' Eoghan turned away, saying, Imireaochaimíd beart eigin eile oraibh ('I will play some other trick upon you'). MacCarthy, who understood his remark, replied: 'I'll take good care, Sullivan, you will not.'"
Corkery writes of the odd contrast between the English view of Eoghan Rua, who must have seemed an awkward, rascally fellow to the Admiral, and the Irish author of "perfect lyrics, with the intuitional poet in every line of them!"
Much of Eoghan Rua's life is unknown. He returned after the wars to Kerry and opened a school again. Soon afterwards, aged 35, he died from fever that set in after he was struck by a pair of tongs in an alehouse quarrel, by a servant of a local Anglo-Irish family. "The story of how, after the fracas in Knocknagree in which he was killed, a young woman lay down with him and tempted him to make sure he was really dead, was passed on with relish." He was buried in midsummer, 1784, near or possibly in Muckross Abbey
.
, or Irish-speaking regions, of Munster
, by word of mouth right up until the present day. Yeats
used aspects of Ó Súilleabháin's reputation in his stories of Red Hanrahan
, his invented alter ego, whose given name is "Owen," who carries a copy of Virgil in his pocket, "the hedge schoolmaster, a tall, strong, red-haired young man." John Millington Synge
mentions Owen Roe in his famous play The Playboy of the Western World
: the heroine Pegeen compares the Playboy, Christy, to him:
"If you weren't destroyed travelling, you'd have as much talk and streeleen, I'm thinking, as Owen Roe O'Sullivan or the poets of the Dingle Bay, and I've heard all times it's the poets are your like, fine fiery fellows with great rages when their temper's roused."
Synge had spent much time in West Kerry and spoke Irish, so he had certainly heard the legends of Owen Roe; Christy's character resembles that of Owen Roe in many points.
Thanks in part to Corkery's book, Ó Súilleabháin has become more widely known in English over the years. The Irish musician Seán Ó Riada
wrote a play based on the life of Owen Roe, called A Spailpín a Rún (My Darling Spalpeen). The song of the same name is part of the "Lament" in the music of the Titanic (1997 film)
. There is a memorial to him at Knocknagree
, County Cork.
According to the Irish writer Frank O'Connor
, Eoghan Rua's songs are as popular among Irish-speakers as those of Robert Burns
are in Scotland
. One of the most popular drinking songs in Ireland today is attributed to him : Bímíd ag ól is ag pógadh na mBan (Let us be drinking and kissing the women"). Translated into English in a book by Petrie (1855), one of its verses goes:
"Owen Roe lived at the worst time in history for an Irish poet, when the Penal Laws were killing the ancient way of life and when Catholics had no legal way to make a professional living. He was a brilliant, red-haired, hard-living brawler, called "Owen of the Sweet Mouth" [Eoghan an Bhéil Bhinn], and in Munster I have myself still met Irish speakers who passed down the folk memory of his great charm.
An example of the first verse of one of his poems (set to the tune "John O'Dwyer of the Glen"):
Irish people
The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...
poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
.
Ó Súilleabháin is known as one of the last great Gaelic
Irish language
Irish , also known as Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is now spoken as a first language by a minority of Irish people, as well as being a second language of a larger proportion of...
poets. A recent anthology of Irish-language poetry speaks of his "extremely musical" poems full of "astonishing technical virtuosity" and also notes that "Eoghan Rua is still spoken of and quoted in Irish-speaking districts in Munster
Munster
Munster is one of the Provinces of Ireland situated in the south of Ireland. In Ancient Ireland, it was one of the fifths ruled by a "king of over-kings" . Following the Norman invasion of Ireland, the ancient kingdoms were shired into a number of counties for administrative and judicial purposes...
as one of the great wits and playboys of the past."
Eoghan Rua was relatively unknown to English speakers until 1924, although famous among Irish-speakers, especially in Munster. In a 1903 book, Douglas Hyde
Douglas Hyde
Douglas Hyde , known as An Craoibhín Aoibhinn , was an Irish scholar of the Irish language who served as the first President of Ireland from 1938 to 1945...
, an Irish scholar from Roscommon who had learned Irish, referred to him as "a schoolmaster named O'Sullivan, in Munster" in his book The Songs of Connacht (which includes a drinking song by Ó Súilleabháin). The 1911 version of the Encyclopædia Britannica mentioned Eoghan Rua in an article on "Celtic Literature," calling him "the cleverest of the Jacobite poets" and noting that "his verses and bons mots are still well known in Munster."
In 1924, Daniel Corkery devoted a chapter of his groundbreaking book The Hidden Ireland (1924) to Eoghan Rua Ó Súilleabháin. The book was the first comprehensive look at the world of Irish-speakers during the 18th century, a period which had been considered completely barren except for English-language literature.
Corkery writes, "'What Pindar is to Greece, what Burns is to Scotland... that and much more is Eoghan Ruadh to Ireland.' Alas! it is by no means so; but were Father Dinneen to write: "that and much more was Eoghan Ruadh to Gaelic Munster," he would have understated rather than overstated the matter." He then discussed at length the way country people came alive at the mention of Ó Súilleabháin's name, and could recite long poems and a hundred stories about him.
"Eoghan Rua's life was ... tragic, but then he was a wastrel with a loud laugh." Ó Súilleabháin is most famous for his aisling
Aisling
The aisling , or vision poem, is a poetic genre that developed during the late 17th and 18th centuries in Irish language poetry...
[pron. "ashling"] poems, in which the vision of a beautiful woman comes to the poet in his sleep—the woman also often symbolizing the tragic Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
of his time. Most of the following information comes from Corkery's work. Corkery in his turn depended on a book in the Irish language, Amhráin Eoghain Ruaidh Uí Shúilleabháin, or Songs of Eoghan Rua Ó Súilleabháin, written by the priest An t-Athair Pádraig Ua Duinnín (Father Dinneen).
Early life
Eoghan Rua was born in 1748 in Sliabh LuachraSliabh Luachra
Sliabh Luachra is a region in Munster, Ireland, located around the River Blackwater, on the County Cork/County Kerry/County Limerick borderland.-Music and literature:...
, a mountainous part of County Kerry
County Kerry
Kerry means the "people of Ciar" which was the name of the pre-Gaelic tribe who lived in part of the present county. The legendary founder of the tribe was Ciar, son of Fergus mac Róich. In Old Irish "Ciar" meant black or dark brown, and the word continues in use in modern Irish as an adjective...
, in southwestern Ireland. He was from a once-prominent sept
Sept
A sept is an English word for a division of a family, especially a division of a clan. The word might have its origin from Latin saeptum "enclosure, fold", or it can be an alteration of sect.The term is found in both Ireland and Scotland...
that like so many others gradually lost its land and its leaders in the successive British conquests of Ireland. By the time of his birth, most of the native Irish in the southwest had been reduced to landless poverty in a "houseless and unpeopled," mountainous region. But the landlord was MacCarthy Mór, one of the few native Irish Chiefs of the Name
Chiefs of the Name
The Chief of the Name, or in older English usage Captain of his Nation, is the recognised head of a family or clan...
to have retained some power, and a distant relative of the Ó Súilleabháin sept; and in Sliabh Luachra there was at the time one of the last "classical schools" of Irish poetry
Irish poetry
The history of Irish poetry includes the poetries of two languages, one in Irish and the other in English. The complex interplay between these two traditions, and between both of them and other poetries in English, has produced a body of work that is both rich in variety and difficult to...
, descended from the ancient, rigorous schools that had trained bards and poets in the days of Irish domination. In these last few remnants of the bardic schools, Irish poets competed for attention and rewards, and learned music, English, Latin and Greek.
Eoghan Rua (the Rua refers to his red hair) was witty and charming, but had the misfortune to live at a time when an Irish Catholic had no professional future in his own country because of the anti-Catholic Penal Laws. He also had a reckless character and threw away the few opportunities he was given. At eighteen, he opened his own school, and "all his life through, whenever his fortunes were hopeless, on this empty trade Eoghan was to fall back." But "an incident occurred, nothing to his credit, which led to the break-up of his establishment."
Eoghan Rua then became a spalpeen [Irish spailpín], or itinerant farm worker, until he was 31 years old. He then was forced to join the army under interesting circumstances. Ó Súilleabháin was then working for the Nagle family, a wealthy Anglo-Irish
Anglo-Irish
Anglo-Irish was a term used primarily in the 19th and early 20th centuries to identify a privileged social class in Ireland, whose members were the descendants and successors of the Protestant Ascendancy, mostly belonging to the Church of Ireland, which was the established church of Ireland until...
, but Catholic and Irish-speaking, family in Fermoy
Fermoy
Fermoy is a town in County Cork, Ireland. It is situated on the River Blackwater in the south of Ireland. Its population is some 5,800 inhabitants, environs included ....
, County Cork
County Cork
County Cork is a county in Ireland. It is located in the South-West Region and is also part of the province of Munster. It is named after the city of Cork . Cork County Council is the local authority for the county...
. (The Nagles were themselves an unusual family. The mother of British politician Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke PC was an Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist and philosopher who, after moving to England, served for many years in the House of Commons of Great Britain as a member of the Whig party....
was one of these Nagles, as was Nano Nagle
Nano Nagle
Honora "Nano" Nagle founded the "Sisters of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary" in Ireland . Of the many schools founded by the Presentation Sisters - a number are named after Nano Nagle.- Family background and historical context :The time of Nagle's birth was one of dark sorrow for...
, the founder of the charitable Presentation
Presentation Sisters
The Presentation Sisters, also known as the Sisters of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary are an order of Roman Catholic women founded in Cork, Ireland by Nano Nagle in 1775....
order of nuns.) Corkery writes, "I have had it told to myself that one day in their farmyard he heard a woman, another farm-hand, complain that she had need to write a letter to the master of the house, and had failed to find anyone able to do so. "I can do that for you," Eoghan said, and though misdoubting, she consented that he should. Pen and paper were brought him, and he sat down and wrote the letter in four languages—in Greek, in Latin, in English, in Irish. "Who wrote this letter?" the master asked the woman in astonishment; and the red-headed young labourer was brought before him; questioned, and thereupon set to teach the children of the house....Owing to his bad behavior he had to fly the house, the master pursuing him with a gun." Legend says he was forced to flee when he got a woman pregnant-- some say it was Mrs. Nagle. (see Suantraí dá Mhac Tabhartha
Suantraí dá Mhac Tabhartha
Suantraí dá Mhac Tabhartha, also known as Lullaby to his Illegitimate Son is an Irish-language poem by Eoghan Rua Ó Súilleabháin .-References:...
, which may relate to this incident).
Later years
Ó Súilleabháin escaped to the British military barracks in Fermoy. The British EmpireBritish Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...
was then in the midst of the American Revolutionary War
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War , the American War of Independence, or simply the Revolutionary War, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies in North America, and ended in a global war between several European great powers.The war was the result of the...
, using impressment
Impressment
Impressment, colloquially, "the Press", was the act of taking men into a navy by force and without notice. It was used by the Royal Navy, beginning in 1664 and during the 18th and early 19th centuries, in wartime, as a means of crewing warships, although legal sanction for the practice goes back to...
to fill its dire need for sailors. Ó Súilleabháin soon found himself aboard a British ship in the West Indies, "one of those thousands of barbarously mistreated seamen." He sailed under Admiral Sir George Rodney and took part in the famous 1782 sea Battle of the Saintes
Battle of the Saintes
The Battle of the Saintes took place over 4 days, 9 April 1782 – 12 April 1782, during the American War of Independence, and was a victory of a British fleet under Admiral Sir George Rodney over a French fleet under the Comte de Grasse forcing the French and Spanish to abandon a planned...
, against the French admiral Comte de Grasse. The British won. To ingratiate himself with the Admiral, Ó Súilleabháin wrote an English-language poem called Rodney's Glory about the battle and presented it to the Admiral, who offered to promote him. Ó Súilleabháin asked to be set free from service, but "an officer named MacCarthy, a Kerryman...interposed and said: 'Anything but that; we would not part from you for love or money.' Eoghan turned away, saying, Imireaochaimíd beart eigin eile oraibh ('I will play some other trick upon you'). MacCarthy, who understood his remark, replied: 'I'll take good care, Sullivan, you will not.'"
Corkery writes of the odd contrast between the English view of Eoghan Rua, who must have seemed an awkward, rascally fellow to the Admiral, and the Irish author of "perfect lyrics, with the intuitional poet in every line of them!"
Much of Eoghan Rua's life is unknown. He returned after the wars to Kerry and opened a school again. Soon afterwards, aged 35, he died from fever that set in after he was struck by a pair of tongs in an alehouse quarrel, by a servant of a local Anglo-Irish family. "The story of how, after the fracas in Knocknagree in which he was killed, a young woman lay down with him and tempted him to make sure he was really dead, was passed on with relish." He was buried in midsummer, 1784, near or possibly in Muckross Abbey
Muckross Abbey
Muckross Abbey is one of the major ecclesiastical sites found in the Killarney National Park, County Kerry, Republic of Ireland. It was founded in 1448 as a Franciscan friary for the Observantine Franciscans by Donal McCarthy Mor....
.
Long-lived reputation
In spite of his luckless life, Eoghan Rua was well-beloved and legendary in his own time, and his songs and poems have passed down in the GaeltachtGaeltacht
is the Irish language word meaning an Irish-speaking region. In Ireland, the Gaeltacht, or an Ghaeltacht, refers individually to any, or collectively to all, of the districts where the government recognises that the Irish language is the predominant language, that is, the vernacular spoken at home...
, or Irish-speaking regions, of Munster
Munster
Munster is one of the Provinces of Ireland situated in the south of Ireland. In Ancient Ireland, it was one of the fifths ruled by a "king of over-kings" . Following the Norman invasion of Ireland, the ancient kingdoms were shired into a number of counties for administrative and judicial purposes...
, by word of mouth right up until the present day. Yeats
Yeats
W. B. Yeats was an Irish poet and playwright.Yeats may also refer to:* Yeats ,* Yeats , an impact crater on Mercury* Yeats , an Irish thoroughbred racehorse-See also:...
used aspects of Ó Súilleabháin's reputation in his stories of Red Hanrahan
Owen Red Hanrahan
Owen Red Hanrahan is a fictional character who appears in several works by William Butler Yeats.Yeats based the character largely on the real-life bard Owen Roe O'Sullivan...
, his invented alter ego, whose given name is "Owen," who carries a copy of Virgil in his pocket, "the hedge schoolmaster, a tall, strong, red-haired young man." John Millington Synge
John Millington Synge
Edmund John Millington Synge was an Irish playwright, poet, prose writer, and collector of folklore. He was a key figure in the Irish Literary Revival and was one of the cofounders of the Abbey Theatre...
mentions Owen Roe in his famous play The Playboy of the Western World
The Playboy of the Western World
The Playboy of the Western World is a three-act play written by Irish playwright John Millington Synge and first performed at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, on January 26, 1907. It is set in Michael James Flaherty's public house in County Mayo during the early 1900s...
: the heroine Pegeen compares the Playboy, Christy, to him:
"If you weren't destroyed travelling, you'd have as much talk and streeleen, I'm thinking, as Owen Roe O'Sullivan or the poets of the Dingle Bay, and I've heard all times it's the poets are your like, fine fiery fellows with great rages when their temper's roused."
Synge had spent much time in West Kerry and spoke Irish, so he had certainly heard the legends of Owen Roe; Christy's character resembles that of Owen Roe in many points.
Thanks in part to Corkery's book, Ó Súilleabháin has become more widely known in English over the years. The Irish musician Seán Ó Riada
Seán Ó Riada
Seán Ó Riada , was a composer and perhaps the single most influential figure in the revival of Irish traditional music during the 1960s...
wrote a play based on the life of Owen Roe, called A Spailpín a Rún (My Darling Spalpeen). The song of the same name is part of the "Lament" in the music of the Titanic (1997 film)
Titanic (1997 film)
Titanic is a 1997 American epic romance and disaster film directed, written, co-produced, and co-edited by James Cameron. A fictionalized account of the sinking of the RMS Titanic, it stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Jack Dawson, Kate Winslet as Rose DeWitt Bukater and Billy Zane as Rose's fiancé, Cal...
. There is a memorial to him at Knocknagree
Knocknagree
Knocknagree , is located in the north-west of County Cork in Ireland. Located on the R582 regional road it is 5 km north of Rathmore. It is approximately one mile from the Cork-Kerry border, and looks south towards the Blackwater River...
, County Cork.
According to the Irish writer Frank O'Connor
Frank O'Connor
Frank O’Connor was an Irish author of over 150 works, best known for his short stories and memoirs.-Early life:...
, Eoghan Rua's songs are as popular among Irish-speakers as those of Robert Burns
Robert Burns
Robert Burns was a Scottish poet and a lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland, and is celebrated worldwide...
are in Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
. One of the most popular drinking songs in Ireland today is attributed to him : Bímíd ag ól is ag pógadh na mBan (Let us be drinking and kissing the women"). Translated into English in a book by Petrie (1855), one of its verses goes:
My name is Ó Súilleabháin, a most eminent teacher;
My qualifications will ne'er be extinct;
I'd write as good Latin as any in the nation;
No doubt I'm experienced in arithmetic.
"Owen Roe lived at the worst time in history for an Irish poet, when the Penal Laws were killing the ancient way of life and when Catholics had no legal way to make a professional living. He was a brilliant, red-haired, hard-living brawler, called "Owen of the Sweet Mouth" [Eoghan an Bhéil Bhinn], and in Munster I have myself still met Irish speakers who passed down the folk memory of his great charm.
Literary works
According to Dinneen, none of Ó Súilleabháin's poems were printed in his lifetime. He wrote his poems and they spread through song. He was most famous for his Aisling poems, set to popular music, about beautiful women, symbolizing Ireland in degradation at a time when the country's fortunes were at its nadir. The woman is described in great physical detail, and at least one of the poems is pornographic.The Aisling, or vision of Erin... became in the hands of Eoghan a powerful means of instructing and delighting the popular mind. His was a time in which the study of Irish history and historical legend was rapidly on the wane.... The Aisling... served to keep alive the leading traditions of the past. The uneducated peasant... did not advert to the fact that he was receiving a lesson in history.... Perhaps there never was a poet so entirely popular-- never one of whom it could be more justly said volitar vivus per ora virum [He soars, alive in the mouths of the people]. His songs were sung everywhere.... Munster was spellbound for generations.... The present generation, to whom the Irish language is not vernacular, in reading these poems should bear in mind that they were all intended to be sung, and to airs then perfectly understood by the people, and that no adequate idea can be informed of their power over the Irish mind, unless they are heard sung by an Irish-speaking singer to whom they are familiar.
An example of the first verse of one of his poems (set to the tune "John O'Dwyer of the Glen"):
Mo chás! mo chaoi! mo cheasna!
An fáth thug claoidhte i n-easbaidh
fáide, draoite, sagairt,
dáim agus cléir,
gan dán dá ríomh le haiteas,
gan ráidte grinn dá n-aithris,
gan sám-chruit bhinn dá spreagadh,
i mbán-bhrogaidh réidhe!
s gach ráib d'fhuil Mhíleadh ceannais,
l'áidir, laochda, tapa,
ba ghnáthach rinnceach, reathach,
lán-oilte ar faobhar.
Gan stát, gan mhaoin, gan fearann,
ár is míle measa
ná Seán Ua Duibhir an Ghleanna
fástha gan game.
My trouble! My lament! My torment!
The cause which left broken, in want,
prophets, poets, and priests,
the scholars and the clergy,
--no more poems composed with pleasure,
no more telling of witty stories,
no more lively musical harp-playing,
in tranquil fair mansions!
Every scion of the MilesianMilesians (Irish)Milesians are a people figuring in Irish mythology. The descendants of Míl Espáine, they were the final inhabitants of Ireland, and were believed to represent the Goidelic Celts.-Myth:...
chiefs,
strong, courteous, quick,
used to dancing and racing,
skilful with weapons,
now without state, without wealth, without land,
slaughter and a thousand things worse
than John O'Dwyer of the Glens*
left without game.
- (The ballad of John O'Dwyer sings of the felling of Irish forests by the English rulers of Ireland in the 18th century)
External links
- Quotation from one of Ó Súilleabháin's most famous poems
- Article by William Mahon (Aberystwyth) from Uppsala University (Sweden) Celtic Studies publication, discussing an Aisling parody written by Ó Súilleabháin. With text, translation and bibliography.
- English translation of two of Ó Súilleabháin's poems, in Irish Poems From Cromwell to the Famine, by Joan Keefe
- Discussion and translation of a drinking song written by O'Sullivan and still popular today
- One of Ó Súilleabháin's songs
- Some crests of the Ó Súilleabháin sept
- Short biography of Ó Súilleabháin, Electronic Irish Records Dataset, Princess Grace Library, Monaco: Search under O for "Eoghan Rua Ó Súilleabháin"
- Article from Limerick, Ireland, newspaper, 1950, referring to a well-known story about Ó Súilleabháin
- Link to information on one of Ó Súilleabháin's songs
- http://danmahony.com/speirbhean.htm Dedication of the Sky Woman statue in Killarney, County Kerry, dedicated to Kerry poets Piaras FeiritéarPiaras FeiritéarPiaras Feiritéar was an Irish poet.Feiritéar was a Norman-Irish lord of Baile an Fheirtéaraigh in Corca Dhuibhne. Although best known as a poet, it was his role as a leader of the nascent Catholic Irish community of Norman- and Gaelic- Irish origin which ultimately lead to his execution in...
, Seafradh Ó Donnchadha, Aogán Ó RathailleAogán Ó RathailleAodhagán Ó Rathaille, also spelt Aogán Ó Rathaille or Anglicised as Egan O'Rahilly , was an Irish language poet. He is credited with creating the first fully developed Aisling poem.-Early life:...
and Eoghan Rua Ó Súilleabháin] - from Poetry Ireland, history of the Sky Woman statue dedicated to Ó Súilleabháin and three other Kerry poets
- Photo of Sky Woman statue
- Photo of Ó Súilleabháin's memorial stone
- Details of play about Ó Súilleabháin, "The Red-Haired Man," by Geraldine Kalka Cash.
- Text of "The Playboy of the Western World"
See also
- Aogán Ó RathailleAogán Ó RathailleAodhagán Ó Rathaille, also spelt Aogán Ó Rathaille or Anglicised as Egan O'Rahilly , was an Irish language poet. He is credited with creating the first fully developed Aisling poem.-Early life:...
- Dáibhí Ó BruadairDáibhí Ó BruadairDáibhí Ó Bruadair was one of the most significant Irish language poets of the 17th century. He lived through a momentous time in Irish history and his work serves as testimony to the death of the old Irish cultural and political order and the decline in respect for the once honoured and feared...
- Cathal Buí Mac Giolla GhunnaCathal Buí Mac Giolla Ghunna-Biography:Along with Peadar Ó Doirnín, Art Mac Cumhaigh and Séamas Dall Mac Cuarta, Cathal Buí Mac Giolla Ghunna one of the four most prominent of the south Ulster and north Leinster poets in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries...
- Peadar Ó DoirnínPeadar Ó Doirnín-Biography:Ó Doirnín is one of the most celebrated of the Ulster poets in the eighteenth century and along with Art Mac Cumhaigh, Cathal Buí Mac Giolla Ghunna and Séamas Dall Mac Cuarta was part of the Airgíalla tradition of poetry and song...
- Séamas Dall Mac CuartaSéamas Dall Mac CuartaSéamas Dall Mac Cuarta was a central figure in the seventeenth and eighteenth century Airgíalla school of poets and songwriters in the Irish language...
- Art Mac CumhaighArt Mac CumhaighArt Mac Cumhaigh was, along with Cathal Buí Mac Giolla Ghunna, Peadar Ó Doirnín and Séamas Dall Mac Cuarta, among the most celebrated of the south Ulster and north Leinster poets in the eighteenth century...
- Seán Clárach Mac DomhnaillSeán Clárach Mac Domhnaill-External links:* * -Sources:...
- Piaras FeiritéarPiaras FeiritéarPiaras Feiritéar was an Irish poet.Feiritéar was a Norman-Irish lord of Baile an Fheirtéaraigh in Corca Dhuibhne. Although best known as a poet, it was his role as a leader of the nascent Catholic Irish community of Norman- and Gaelic- Irish origin which ultimately lead to his execution in...