August 2, 2026

To Dháibhí Ó hIarlaithe (mid-18th century_

Muinntir Uí hIarlaithe were, if I remember correctly, hereditary airchinnigh of the church of St Gobnait in Ballyvourney, west of Macroom, Co Cork, and so were not only responsible for maintaining the shrine and church etc., but were expected to provide hospitality in general. (Line 7 of the poem refers to this aspect of their role.)

Aircheannach was a traditional role in Ireland, originally ecclesiastic, but over the centuries it became laicized and hereditary, The families were still associated with learning and poetry even in later years, though lay learning rather than ecclesiastical. W well-known example was Tadhg Ó Rodaigh in central Leitrim, a very important link in that area in carrying on and transmitting the old learning,

Ballyvourney.Ballingeary etc. was in 1700 an out-of-the-way place and it wasn’t until about 1718 that it got a powerful English landlord determined to make as much money as possible from the place. The old system was dismantled and the Uí hIarlaithe lost their land.

Dáibhí mac Phádraig, the subject of this poem, fled the area and married Doireann Ní Dhonnchú of the family of the lords of Gleann Fleisce, an even more remote place just over the border in Kerrty.

This poem tranmslated here laments that things have really gone to hell in Ballyvourney and the poet (Séamas Ó Muimhneacháin) wishes Dáibhí mac Pádraig was still around and things were back the way they used to be.

Ursa den Iarl’fhuil riamh do’b acmhainne bang,

Ba churanta triall i ngliadhaibh cath faobhair-lann,

Nár cuireadfh i ndiaidh a riain gur neartaigh dlí Gall,

Lenar clipeadh gach triath i gcian tar fairrigí fann.

Is é chruinnigh am liach so i’m chliabh, dá leamaimis labhairt,

Gan duine den triabh in bhur ndiaidh ag seasamh tís teann,

In ionad na mbiatach bhfiala bhfairsing bhí i bhfabhar,

Conairt dá riar, is fiach ag gasraibh Gall.

Tuilleadh le’r liath mo chiabh, tú thaistil faoin nGleann,

Le’r hitheadh na triatha I’d dhiaidh do’b aithnid díbh ann,

Más miste leat iad dá gciapadh in anaithibh namhad,

Lig cumas do bhriathran I’m thriall go dtagair faoin mball.

Séamas Ó Muimneacháin (flourished around 1770).

Extremely literal and awkward translation

“Oh, “supporting beam” of lordly blood whose words were capable.

(also pun om “Iarlaith”)

Who was hero-like in struggle in sharp-edged battle,

Who was not forced back/out of his track until the foreign law became strong,

With which every lord was harassed far over the seas, weak.

What gathered sorrow into my breast, if I may speak,

Is that there’s no one of your kin after to stand hospitality for those in hardship,

In the place of the very generous hospitallers who were in favor.

Now dogs are being reared, and the English do hunt.

Another reason my hair has greyed, that you have fled to the Gleann,

As a result of which the strong you knew here are now eaten (to the bone).

If you care that they are harassed in terror of the foreigners,

Set free your skilled words for me, until you come back to the place.

Well, that sounds really stupid. It is a very literal translation, but it’s more than that: it is the difference between languages and different traditions.

In Irish, it is very effective poem though. The cadence not only swings hard, but the language is concise and effective, and there is a satisfaction in the skill with which syntax is used to make music and meaning.

It is amhrán. and for the sound pattern in the first verse, I get ú, ia, ia, a, a, Remember that only accented syllables count.

I translate from Cois an Ghaorthaigh, edited by Diarmaid Ó Muirithe for An Clóchomar in 1987. It’s a collection of 18th and 19 century poetry from the Ballyvourney area, a place that was overrun with poets of many families. The last of Muinntear Uí hIarlaithe was probably Pádraig Ó Crualaoi (1864 – 1949), a tailer in Macroom, one of whose grandparents (great-grandparents?) married a woman of that family.

He composed lots of poetry himself and carried in his head lots and lots more that had been passed down to him. Most of it was of poets from the area, so the book provides a portrait of the literary tradition in one small area. (Very little of this poetry was ever written into manuscript, so that’s not where he got it. A lot of the poems in Cois an Ghairthaidh was obtained from oral tradition from other people besides Pádraig.) Some of Pádraig’s own lore was written down in 1942 and ater published in a big book (Seanchas Phádraig í Chrualaoi) by Comhairle Bhéaloideas Éireann in 1982.l

Sometimes modern people assume that if it wasn’t for writing and computers etc, everything that happened in the past would have soon been forgotten, but that was not at all true in traditional societies.

Pádraig, for example, knew details of the lives of people (relatives, admittedly) who lived around 1700, and he knew the works of poets who flourished 150 years before he was born, and stories about them. People in the area still remembered in the 1940s the exact location where people dropped and died during the Famine. People in Ballinskelligs, which was also still Irish-speaking in the 1940s, knew details of the battle that happened in the early 17th century when an English warship unexpectedly appeared there.

People remembered.

Place names helped, of course, and in many parts of Ireland, a walk to the top of the hill was a walk through local history as recorded in very local place names. That rock is where Seán encountered the púca; that hillock is where Máire (my great-grandmother’s cousin) used to sit: over there was very good for rushes: Ó Súilleabháin Beara passed in the valley there long ago.

Fewer and fewer people walk to the top of the hill today, of course, and the local place names and thus the history and links between place and people are falling away into darkness, as is so much else, including Dáibhí Mac Pádraig, this poem etc. etc.Write your text here...

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Ghaillimh na líog-gheal go Corcaigh na gcuan;

Barra gach crainn síor-chuireas toradh agus cnuas,

Meas daire ar gach coill, fír-mhil ar clochaibh go buan…

One morning before the Sun even thought to stir his feet,

To the summit of a fine high hill I climbed (literally “we”).

There came to me a band of joyous happy maidens:

A band from the resplendent (Fairy) palace north there, Shee (Shanid?).

A druid cloud spread over all, of no dark appearance,

From Galway of shining stones to Cork with its bays:

The top of every tree put forth fruit and nuts,

A crop of acorns in each oak wood, true honey on every stone,,,

But by was clear by 1729 that darkness was not to lift.

From a lament for a last Irish lord:

Cabhair ní ghairfead go gcuirthear mé i gcruinn-chomhraiinn,

Dar an leabhar, dá ngairfinn, níor ghaire-de an ní dhomh-sa:

Ár gceodhnasch uile, glac-chumasdach shíl Eoghainn,

Is tóllta a chuisle ‘gus d’imigh a bhrí ar feochaidh…

Mo ghlam is minic, is sílimse síordheora,

Is trom mo thubaist ‘s is duine mé ar míchothrom,

Fonn ní thigeann im ghaire ‘s mé ag caoi ar bhóithre

Ach foghar na Muice nach gontar le saigheadóireacht.

Stadfadsa feasta – is gar dom éag gan mhoill

Ó treascaradh dragain Leamhain, Léin is Laoi:

Rachasd ‘na bhfasc le searc na laoch do chill,

Na flatha fá raibh mu shean roimh éag do Chríost.

I will not cry out for help until I’m put in a narrow coffin,

And by the Book, though I called, it would be no nearer to me.

Our whole support, a skilled hand of the seed of Eoghain,

His veins holed now, and all his might decaying.

It’s often I cry out in pain and tears come always

Heavy disaster I carry always, a man on uncertain ground,

No music I hear anywhere near as I go down the road lamenting

But only the squeal of the Pig that is not slain by arrows (i.e. death)

I will stop now and forever, for death draws soon near

Since the dragons of (river) Laune, Killarney and Lee are thrown down.

I will go to them in the graveyard, with love for those heroes:

The lords under whom my own ancestors served (as poets) since before Christ died.

June 21, 2026

Cia re bhfuil Eiri ac anmhuin?

Mó is righin dá rioghdhamhnaibh,

Críoch na n-iaith linnte leabhar,

Gan triath innti d’áitiughadh.

(For whom is Ireland waiting?

Potential kings are slow in appearing,

The country of wide territories of warm lakes,

Though no lord now inhabits her.)

(Translated from Duanaire Mhéig Uidhitr: The Poembook of Cú Chonnacht Mág Uidhir, Lord of Fermanagh 1566 – 1589, edited from the Copenhagen manuscript by David Greene, Dublin Institute for advanced Studies, 1972)

Bardic poetry is not for everyone. It’s not just that the language is often compressed and difficult, but the subject matter is usually praise of some now long dead Irish king or lord. I mean, who cares? He was probably just some brutal strongman.

Probably was sometimes, yeah, but I think there is another way to look at it.

The public presentation of a new bardic poem at the court of the lord for whom it was composed was not a literary or event and the poet was not some bookish guy hoping to get on the good side of the powerful. It was a public ceremony enunciating and affirming truths central to the society: one of them being the symbolic “marriage” of the human realm and nature/the non-human world as represented in the ruler.

Not that the ruler had achieved some mystical understanding or status, and there were historical periods when he may very well have plotted and murdered to ascend to his position, but the understanding was that, by filling the position of king/lord, a man accepted the fact that he had to maintain justice and proper action in all matters, and that if he did not, natural and social harmony would be broken. Evidence that he was maintaining the proper way was good weather, good crops of nuts etc. in the forests, fish in the streams and social peace.

There are several old stories that illustrate what happened when a ruler did something to satisfy his own desires, even though it went against the proper way of things. Conchobhar Mac Nessa took young and beautiful Deirdre for himself: Conaire Mór allowed close kin to do violence against the people. What happened as a result? Dark forces of chaos and violence erupt and destroy the king and his court. See the story of Deirdre or Togail Bruidne Dá Derga

So the presentation of a bardic poem was one way that the social descendants of the ancient druids, acting as spokesmen for the proper way of things, affirmed that a particular ruler was following the right path, was a good king etc. It was a precise, important ceremony and though there were no priests and no mention of God, it could almost be called a religious one, though a religious ceremony involving difficult work on the highwire, as it were, because the requirements of the poetic meter were very strict and required careful training.

Here is description of how traditional bardic students went about learning poetry:

"....the place should be in a solitary recess of a garden or within a sept or inclosure far out of the reach of any noise....The structure was a snug, low hut , and beds in it at convenient distances, each within a small apartment without much furniture of any kind, save only a table, some seats, and a conveniency for clothes to hang upon. No windows to let in the day, nor any lights used at all but that of candles and these brought at a proper season only. The students upon thorough examination being first divided into classes. The professors....gave a subject suitable to the capacity of each class, determining the number of rhimes, and clearing what was to be chiefly observed therein as to syllables, quartrains, concord, correspondence, terminations and union, each of which were restrained by peculiar rules. The said subject having been given over night, they worked it apart each by himself upon his own bed, the whole next day in the dark, till at a certain hour in the night, lights being brought in, they committed it to writing. Being afterwards dressed and come together in a large room where the masters waited, each scholar gave in his performance, which being corrected or approved of, either the same or fresh subjects were given against the next day....It was six or seven years before a mastery or the last degree was conferred, which you'll the less admire upon considering the great difficulty of the art, the many kinds of their poems, the the exactness and nicety to be observed in each...."

(This is from the Memoirs of the Marquis of Clanricarde, published in 1722, said to be the work of Thomas O'Sullivan, an Irish scholar from Tipperary who was active in London in the 1720s researching manuscripts in order to write a history of Ireland. Good source books on “bardic” metrics are Eleanor Knott's Irish Syllabic Poetry, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1974; and Duainearacht: Rialacha Meadarachta Fhiliocht na mBard by Cait Ni Dhomhnaill, Oifig an tSoláthair, Dublin 1975.

But that’s not what I wanted to talk about at all.

Bardic poetry can be difficult, but the poets did also compose poetry about other things. Mostly it was never written down because there was no one concerned about preserving it. Sometimes, pretty much by accident of history, it was written down and it did survive, and this is where the whole corpus of the Dánta Grá, the great love poetry of the late Medieval period comes from.

Then in the ;ate 16th century the world collapsed and Irish men and women watched hordes of violent greedy bastards with guns and cannon and big horses grab everything and kill anybody who got in the way. It didn’t matter that an Irish ruler observed the way of things: the flood engulphed everyone, It sure looked like all that oild stuff was just crap. It looked like God had abandoned the Irish too.

Pretty soon, there were almost no Irish lords and the Englishmen who took their land did not care about ceremonies or bardic poetry or letting the old learned families stick around unless they could pay the new rent. “This land was always yours? Don’t make me laugh. Land is a commodity and it’s mine now. Beat it.”

So knowldge of the old system of learning, including bardic poetry, gradually and sometimes instantaneously died out. Mostly it took a generation, though, asnd there were still some people who had been educated in the old system and they composed poetry in the old way or something like it, about what was happening. What they left us is pretty great, in my opinion.

Aodhgán O Rathaille, Seathrúin Ceitinn, Páidrigín Haicéad, Muiris Mac Dáibhi Dubh, O Bruadair, Séamas Dall Mac Cuarta, Piarais Feiritéar and the rest took the careful attention, gravitas and exquisite musical sensibilty of the bards and used them to go up against death and darkness, and I will talk about them next week

A thonn-sa thíos is airde géim go hard,

Meabhair mi chinn cloite ó’d bhéiceach tá:

Cabhair dá dtíodh arís ar Eirinn bhán,

Do ghlam nach binn, do dhingfinn féin i’d bhráid.

You, wave down there that cries out so loudly,

My mind is overwhelmed by your yells:

If help came to fair Ireland once more,

I’d shove your harsh howling back down in your throat.

August 9, 2026

To Dháibhí Ó hIarlaithe (mid-18th century)

Muinntear Uí hIarlaithe were, if I remember correctly, hereditary airchinnigh of the church of St Gobnait in Ballyvourney, west of Macroom, Co Cork, and so were not only responsible for maintaining the shrine and church etc., but were expected to provide hospitality in general. (Line 7 of the poem refers to this aspect of their role.)

Aircheannach was a traditional role in Ireland, originally ecclesiastic, but over the centuries it became laicized and hereditary, The families were still associated with learning and poetry even in later years, though lay learning rather than ecclesiastical. W well-known example was Tadhg Ó Rodaigh in central Leitrim, a very important link in that area in carrying on and transmitting the old learning,

Ballyvourney.Ballingeary etc. was in 1700 an out-of-the-way place and it wasn’t until about 1718 that it got a powerful English landlord determined to make as much money as possible from the place. The old system was dismantled and the Uí hIarlaithe lost their land.

Dáibhí mac Phádraig, the subject of this poem, fled the area and married Doireann Ní Dhonnchú of the family of the lords of Gleann Fleisce, an even more remote place just over the border in Kerrty.

This poem tranmslated here laments that things have really gone to hell in Ballyvourney and the poet (Séamas Ó Muimhneacháin) wishes Dáibhí mac Pádraig was still around and things were back the way they used to be.

Ursa den Iarl’fhuil riamh do’b acmhainne bang,

Ba churanta triall i ngliadhaibh cath faobhair-lann,

Nár cuireadfh i ndiaidh a riain gur neartaigh dlí Gall,

Lenar clipeadh gach triath i gcian tar fairrigí fann.

Is é chruinnigh am liach so i’m chliabh, dá leamaimis labhairt,

Gan duine den triabh in bhur ndiaidh ag seasamh tís teann,

In ionad na mbiatach bhfiala bhfairsing bhí i bhfabhar,

Conairt dá riar, is fiach ag gasraibh Gall.

Tuilleadh le’r liath mo chiabh, tú thaistil faoin nGleann,

Le’r hitheadh na triatha I’d dhiaidh do’b aithnid díbh ann,

Más miste leat iad dá gciapadh in anaithibh namhad,

Lig cumas do bhriathran I’m thriall go dtagair faoin mball.

by Séamas Ó Muimneacháin (flourished around 1770).

Extremely literal and awkward translation

“Oh, “supporting beam” of lordly blood whose words were capable.

(also pun om “Iarlaith”)

Who was hero-like in struggle in sharp-edged battle,

Who was not forced back/out of his track until the foreign law became strong,

With which every lord was harassed far over the seas, weak.

What gathered sorrow into my breast, if I may speak,

Is that there’s no one of your kin after to stand hospitality for those in hardship,

In the place of the very generous hospitallers who were in favor.

Now dogs are being reared, and the English do hunt.

Another reason my hair has greyed, that you have fled to the Gleann,

As a result of which the strong you knew here are now eaten (to the bone).

If you care that they are harassed in terror of the foreigners,

Set free your skilled words for me, until you come back to the place.

Well, that sounds really stupid. It is a very literal translation, but it’s more than that: it is the difference between languages and different traditions.

In Irish, it is very effective poem though. The cadence not only swings hard, but the language is concise and effective, and there is a satisfaction in the skill with which syntax is used to make music and meaning.

It is amhrán. and for the sound pattern in the first verse, I get ú, ia, ia, a, a, Remember that only accented syllables count.

I translate from Cois an Ghaorthaigh, edited by Diarmaid Ó Muirithe for An Clóchomar in 1987. It’s a collection of 18th and 19 century poetry from the Ballyvourney area, a place that was overrun with poets of many families. The last of Muinntear Uí hIarlaithe was probably Pádraig Ó Crualaoi (1864 – 1949), a tailer in Macroom, one of whose grandparents (great-grandparents?) married a woman of that family.

He composed lots of poetry himself and carried in his head lots and lots more that had been passed down to him. Most of it was of poets from the area, so the book provides a portrait of the literary tradition in one small area. (Very little of this poetry was ever written into manuscript, so that’s not where he got it. A lot of the poems in Cois an Ghairthaidh was obtained from oral tradition from other people besides Pádraig.) Some of Pádraig’s own lore was written down in 1942 and ater published in a big book (Seanchas Phádraig í Chrualaoi) by Comhairle Bhéaloideas Éireann in 1982.l

Sometimes modern people assume that if it wasn’t for writing and computers etc, everything that happened in the past would have soon been forgotten, but that was not at all true in traditional societies.

Pádraig, for example, knew details of the lives of people (relatives, admittedly) who lived around 1700, and he knew the works of poets who flourished 150 years before he was born, and stories about them. People in the area still remembered in the 1940s the exact location where people dropped and died during the Famine. People in Ballinskelligs, which was also still Irish-speaking in the 1940s, knew details of the battle that happened in the early 17th century when an English warship unexpectedly appeared there.

People remembered.

Place names helped, of course, and in many parts of Ireland, a walk to the top of the hill was a walk through local history as recorded in very local place names. That rock is where Seán encountered the púca; that hillock is where Máire (my great-grandmother’s cousin) used to sit: over there was very good for rushes: Ó Súilleabháin Beara passed in the valley there long ago.

Fewer and fewer people walk to the top of the hill today, of course, and the local place names and thus the history and links between place and people are falling away into darkness, as is so much else, including Dáibhí Mac Pádraig, this poem etc. etc.

August 2, 2026

Quite a few Englishmen wrote long, passionate descriptions of Ireland in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. There was Spenser the poet, of course, and world-traveler Fynes Moryson: Stanyhurst of Dubli: the Catholic priest William Good: Barnaby Rich: Harrington: Bodley:Dunton and so on.

Descriptions of Ireland…a reader would expect to learn a good bit about Ireland from it, or at least about the writer. Information about Irish society would be very useful because no Irishman or woman wrote a description of their own society or any aspects of it. Irish literature is helpful, of course, but limited.

The descriptions and essays tell us probably more about English society than Irish society because most of the writers were absolutely horrified by the Irish and their ways. What was it in contemporary English society and the English psyche produced that reaction?

To begin why were they even in Ireland?

Well, the Queen was supposedly Queen of Ireland as well as of England and Wales, though most of the Irish did not recognize her or her government as having any authority there. That had been the situation for many generations, though. Irish unwillingness to recognize their authority tended to upset English officials when the fact was brought to their attention but mostly they were not looking west at all.

A lot happened in English society in the early 16th century, though, and the end result was (as I wrote somewhere else) a n extremely manic, aggressive and efficient expanding economy and state. Ireland’s bad luck was that it was right there and not only was it not a competitor like France or Spain, it was easy pickings.

English society in the late 16th century was characterized by, for the first time in its history:

A landowning class, many of them newly ascended to that position and beholden to the government for their wealth. Wealth was now gained through business, law and government position.

Very few great lords were in any position to challenge the Crown or had any interest in doing so.

A new Church whose property was at the disposal of the government and whose clergy were willing to act as agents of the state.

A social structure based on an absolute right to property precluding all other previous hereditary rights of access or claims on resources of land.

For ordinary people, individual and family survival was dependent on adherence to practices that certified one was a good and remunerative farm tenant.

Every man has a master/superior responsible for his good behavior.

There was a network of officials resident throughout the country charged with enforcing the law. They were backed by force. Many of them were also the local landlords.

English was sole official language,

Most of the men who wrote about Ireland were not there on holiday. They were government officials, soldiers or entrepreneurs there because they wanted the Irish to do what they were supposed to do: or there were there to get rich on the wild frontier.

The same things tended to horrify them, and they can be summed up under a few headings.

Ireland was: disorganized: messy: confusing: different: they didn’t speak English and didn’t want to: they liked butter, milk, oatmeal, plants and spiced whiskey (actually the whiskey was about the only thing the writers were enthusiastic about because herbs and spices made it soothing and pleasant.): they didn’t live the way we do, the way they should too.

It’s normal to think that people whose land or service or resources you want are stupid, primitive and are wasting the land and its resources and it’s a natural law that they should be pushed aside by people who can use it better. The intensity of the English reaction to the Irish partly arises from that, but was mainly the reaction of a newly anal society to a society that was still pretty relaxed. I won’t go into the specifics of practices that induced horror, disgust and disapproval here. Some of them tell us something about the Irish, some tell us about the English writers, and others just tell us about European travelers’ tales meant to disgust. If you are interested, I will point you toward the sources.

Many of these writings have been printed in various journals, but the only place I know of where some of them are collected in in:

1) Quinn, David Beers, The Elizabethans and The Irish, Folger Shakespeare Library. Cornell University Press, (about 1965)

2) Myers, James (editor), Elizabethan Ireland: A Selection of Writings by Writers on Ireland Archon Books, 1983

Quin was a Shakespeare scholar and didn’t know much about Ireland. He tries to compare what the writers said and put it in context but doesn’t supply texts. He has a chapter comparing contemporary English writers on Native Americans.

Myers has a limited selection but prints the texts.

Some of the writers summarized the Irish character, and I will finish with that. Some of what they describe is still accurate about the Irish, but a lot of it is not

William Good: “And to speak in general of them all, the nation is strong of body, and passing (fairly) nimble, stout and haughty in heart: for wit, quick: martial, prodigal and careless of their lives: enduring travail, cold and hunger: given to fleshly lust: kind and courteous to strangers: constant in love: in enmity implacable: light of belief (i.e. they are gullible), greedy of glory, impatient of abuse and injury, and as (Gerald of Wales) said in old times, in all affections vehement and passionate. If they be bad, you shall nowhere meet with worse: if they be good, you can hardly find better.”

Stanyhurst: “The people are thus inclined: religious, frank, amorous, ireful, sufferable of infinite pains, very (vain)glorious; many sorcerers, excellent horsemen, delighted with wars, great almsgivers, passing in hospitality. The lewder (i.e. common) sort both clerks and laymen, are sensual and overloose in living. The same, being virtuously bred up or reformed, are such mirrors of holiness and austerity that other nations retain but a shadow of devotion in comparison to them…Greedy of praise they be and fearful of dishonor.”

The Irish society that resulted from the success of the English project was very different from what preceded it, and the Irish people that society produced are very different. The Gaelic Revival of the 1890s etc. was very consciously a project to reclaim a lot of the old stuff and to reconnect with what was before. For a while, it looked like it might succeed, but by 1920, it was clear that they would not.

It is a shame

I am sorry this blog is such a mess. The site is very difficult to use. I am working on it.

July 19, 2026

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