T.F.

Tomás F. O’Rahilly was a well-known Irish scholar from North Kerry, active particularly from the 1920s until the 1950s. He knew manuscript poetry better than anybody, and more about a lot of things than most things. He was also a bit of a jerk, it is said, and was the only one of the many scholars who visited the Blasket Island that Tomas O Criomhthain could find nothing good to say about. (The insults were left out of the book.) I suspect it was simply over-compensation on T.F.'s part, though who knows? I was not there.

He published the two volumes of Measgra Dánta in 1927: a selection of poems dealing with “friendship, poverty, natural beauty and so on”, dating from the 12th to 19th centuries but mostly from the 15th to 17th: “giving preference to those which are simple in style and which can be appreciated by a reader who is unequipped with special knowledge of Irish history or genealogy.”

There is a lot of good stuff.

Here are four quatrains out of nine of a 17th century poem on a bad harper. The earliest manuscript is from 1728, maybe from Tipperary (Royal Irish Academy 24 B 28)

In English, it just sounds like some bad=tempered musician giving out about a rival, but in Irish...Well, you need to learn the language.

Saoi le searbhas Eóin mac Eóin,

Daoi le’r dearbhadh cóir ina locht:,

Mar chráin ag crónán dá cluinn

Fuinn a lámh, dórdán a dhoicht.

Mar bhíos céis ag coin ar chluais

I nguais ag ceisneamh a cáis:

Ó n-a chlos is céasta cluas,

Crobh gan luas ag pléasgadh práis.

Prap do-ní praiseach do phort,

An tan theagmhas fá n-a smacht:

Mar bhíos muileann maol ag meilt,

Ceilt ní chuireann go raob reacht.

Mar umha dá scrios le sgiain,

Mall rian a iongan ar chruit chaoin:

Saoth liom a sgreadach ‘s a chás,

Mar phrás dá ghearradh le gaoin.

(Attributed to Tadhg Rua Ó Conchobhair (north Kerry).

Eóin mac Eóin is a master of grinding discord,

A bumbling fool whose mistakes are masterfully manifest:

Like a sow grunting lovingly to her children,

Are tunes from his hands, the hum of his bumbling.

Like a young pig whose ear a hound has hold of,

In pain complaining of its plight:

Hearing it, an ear is tormented, (a listener’s ear):

A clumsy lump of a hand bursting brass. (brass strings)

Immediately he makes a mess of a tune

Whenever he takes hold of it.

Like an blunt, undressed millstone grinding,

He makes no attempt to conceal his transgressions

Like copper scraped with a knife,

His fingernails’ movement over a fair harp:

Distressful to me their screaming complaint,

Like brass scraped against gravel.

T.F. O’Rahilly also published Deascán Tuanach in the Irish Monthly. It’s subtitled A Selection of Modern Clare Poets, but it is really only Aodh Buí and Aindrias Mac Cruitín, the two most prominent poets of the early 17th century there.

The Mac Cruitíns were a traditional learned family, but the traditional ó’world had fallen apart and their lives were long scrambles for survival as scholars and as people who needed food to eat etc. Aodh spent time in Dublin, one of many scholars attracted there by the possibility of patronage from the new English colonial antiquarians, was imprisoned for daring to write a pamphlet disagreeing with Cox’s book on the conquest of Ireland (Pacata Hibernica), went to France with an Irish regiment in the service of the exiled Stuart king, published an Irish grammar and history, etc.

Aindrias stayed closer to home. He was an old man when he composed the poem here supplicating Donn na Duímhche, fairy king associated with the sandhills near Doonbeg on the coast. Christmas was coming, but Aindrias was starving and cold and there was no one to help him, so he asked Donn to take him into the fairy hill, the Otherworld.

Beannú doimhin duit, a Dhuinn na Duímhche,

‘s ní beannú Guill (i.e. Gall/Englishmasn) do chladhaire Gaíolaig,

Ach beannú duill (daill) I gcuium na hoíche

Le fadú fuinn (plural of fonn) gan deadhailt ó dhíogras.

A uasail don mhuarfhuil do b’aoirde ,

Ó’r uaibhtreadh cleath uachtair gach craoibhe…

A heartfelt greeting to you, Donn of the sandhills.

It is not an Englishman’s (imperious) greeting to an Irish wretch,

But a blind man’s greeting as night comes down

With deepest emotion and all possible intensity (literally “without parting from devotion/intensity)

Nobleman of greatest, most exalted family (blood)

From which the present (upper) portion of every kin is made proud…

(He lays out in about 30 lines Donn’s genealogy and heroic deeds through history…)

Ach marar bodhar tusa ó throm-ghuth na taoide.

Nó marar balbh do theanga agus th’insgne

Nó mara bhfuarais bás mar chách, a Dhuinn ghil,

Do bhéarfair cabhair is freagra dam,

Ós ag gearán mho cháis leat ataoimse (Clare form of atáim-se):

Gur fágadh me mar árthach gan dídean

Cois trá amuich ag bána ‘s ag críona…(about 60 more lines)

But unless you’re deaf now from the thunder of the waves

Or unless your tongue and utterance are dumb,

Or unless you died like everyone, bright Donn,

You will give me help and answer,

Since I am laying out (complaining) my situation

That I’ve been left like a boat out under the elements

Out by the shore bleaching and ageing…

After Cork and maybe Limerick, Clare had the strongest, most extensive poetic tradition in the 18th and early 19th centuries, and it is unique interesting stuff with a flavor different from south Munster.

Donn is also interesting and maybe I’ll write more about that, but not today.

Two Burdún Beag from O’Rahilly’s book Burdúin Bheaga, Numbers 90 and 151.

Number 90, he got from Tadhg Ó Riordáin in Ballyvourney, Co Cork. Number 151 is from manuscript 23 N 13 in the Royal Irish Academy.

Sláinte na féile, s na dea-chroí,

Sláinte an té réfeadh mo cheasnaí, (a reidhfeadh)

Sláinte mo chéile is mo leanaí,

Is mo shláinte bheag féinig nár mheathlaig!

Good health and prosperity to the generous and good-hearted ones,

Good health and [prosperity to the one who takes care of my difficulties,

Good health and prosperity to my spouse and my children,

And my own little good health and prosperity, may they not wither (either).

Is daorcheist ar lucht léite na n-údar sámh

Cé acu dár baoghal i bpunc an bháis:

An té leigeas an saoghal chun siúil do ghnáth,

Nó an té sin do dhéanfadh a dhlúth-chimeád.

An freagra:

Réifead an daorcheist , ós chugham atá: (Réidhfidh mé)

An saoghal do léigean ar siúil is feárr:

Déirc, daonnacht, féile agus clú cimeád,

Is téim-se fé’d shaora-sa i bpunc an bháis.

(Here’s ) a hard question for those who read the gentle authors

Which one of these is in danger as far as the whole death thing goes:

The one who doesn’t ordinarily get caught up in the world

Or the one who grabs on to things and holds them tight?

Answer (from another poet)

I will solve your difficult question, since you have come to me:

It’s better not to get caught up in the world:

Alms, a humane approach, generosity and doing the right thing (literally “keeping a (good) reputation”)

And I guarantee that you will be fine as far as death goes.

O'Rahilly's best-known book was Dánta Grá, a collection of love poems from the manuscripts, the poems being late medieval through 17th century.

They have a particular flavor, passionate, slightly ironic and desperately in love with this world and its creatures and colors. They are poems could only have been composed under Irish skies.

Na bi dom bhuaidhreadh, a bhean,

ar ghrádh th'éinigh na lean diom;

madh fada, madh gearr mo ré,

na buaidhir me tre bhith sior....

Do not be tormenting me, woman;

for love of your honor, do not follow me.

Whether my life is long, whether it is short,

do not torment me by coming here to me.

I will ask a boon of you,

oh radiant one with golden hair;

do not torment me any further,

wherever place we be in.

I have not spent a night or day,

however long or short I am here,

that you are not here with me,

oh slow-pacing foot, oh winding hair.

In my sleep, oh cheek like embers,

no longer come to me in dreams;

when I’m awake, dear slender woman,

do not come to agitate me.

Though it is hard for me to say it to you,

let me see you no longer, do not destroy me:

since I cannot escape from death,

do not come between me and love of God.

You are my one love of all who live,

gentle branch whom God formed;

alas for you that have killed me,

when I myself have killed no person.

Alas that you are not merciful.

enchanting branch with shining eyes;

if I were to be foolish, as you are,

it would be long before I killed you so.

I do not know what I will do;

your mouth like a rowan berry has destroyed me:

my blessing to you, and for the sake of God,

do not trouble me, leave me now.

Oh sweet mouth, oh skin like a flower,

there is many a man in pursuit of you;

in pursuit of me, above all other men,

my dear love, woman, do not come.

Before someone starts talking about Irish puritanism: the point of this is that the poet does not want the woman to go away at all. He is telling her how much he loves or at least desires her.

The poem is associated (if I remember correctly) with the historian, poet and priest, Seathrun Ceitinn, so maybe there is actually something to his plea that she go away (Because he's a priest, you see, though it is true that the Irish clergy in the late medieval period were notorious for marrying and living openly as man and wife. This fact sent the English into a frenzy, but only came to an end in the Counter-Reformation when the Catholic Church transformed itself into a military organization in order to fight its new competitors, Lutherans and Calvinists

Email : tighsagainne@fastmail.com (all lower case)

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