Life
1691-1754; poet; b. nr. Charleville, Co. Cork; ed. locally, prob. in school
founded by Roger Boyle; worked as farmer, owned a mill at Kiltoohig, and
was a teacher; m. Agnes White, prob. a Protestant; copied Keating’s
Forus Feasa ar Eirinn in 1720; wrote ‘Ar Bhás Regent
na Fraingce’ on the death of Philip, Duke of Orleans, 1723, reproaching
him with indifference towards the Jacobite cause in Ireland; ‘Mo
Ghille Mear’ and ‘Ag taisteal dom trí na críocha’
are examples of his Jacobite poetry; ‘Comhracann mo mhacaomh’
is a translation of ‘My Laddie Can Fight’, a Jacobite ballad
in English; over poetic meetings on his farm; visited the Maigue poets
in Croom Co. Limerick, 1735; clashed with Eoghan Ó Caoimh and Tadhg
Gaelach Ó Súilleabháin; composed a satire on death
of a Tipperary landlord, Colonel James Dawson of Aherlow, 1737, and forced
top leave his native district; started translation of Homer; his death
marked by elegies from Seán Ó Tuama ‘an Ghrinn’
and Seán Ó Murchadha na Ráithíneach; Ó
Tuama issued a barántas in his honour; the works were edited by
Risteárd Ó Foghludha (1932). CAB DIW DIB OCIL
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Notes
Charles Read, ed., A Cabinet of Irish Literature (3 vols.,
1876-78), gives bio-data: 1691-1754 [anglice John MacDonnell], b. Charleville,
Co. Cork; ‘a man of great erudition’, and a profound Irish antiquarian
and poet [who] had made valuable collections, and was writing in his native
tongue a history of Ireland ..’ (O’Halloran, History of Ireland).
Buried Ballyslough, nr. Charleville. Hardiman ranks him in Irish the equal
of Pope in English, ‘fortunately for his genius and fame Pope was
born on the right side of the Channel.’ Mac Donnell ‘a rank
Jacobite’ who had to save himself from ‘bard-hunters’;
works cited are Granu Wail’, [trans. not named], ‘Claragh’s
Lament’ (trans. Hardiman), ‘Old Erin in the Sea’ (trans.
W. B. Guinee, of Buttevant), and ‘Claragh’s Dream’, (trans.
J. C. Mangan).
Henry Boylan, A Dictionary of Irish Biography [rev. edn.] (Gill & Macmillan 1988), b. Ráth Luirc (Charleville); trained for priesthood; began trans. of Homer; chief poet in Munster and presided over court of poetry; merciless satire on death of local landlord, Col. Dawson, followed by refuge abroad; surviving handful of poems include lines on Philip Duc d’Orléans; edition of works published by Ó Duinnin [Dinneen] (1902).
Brian Cleeve & Ann Brady, A Dictionary of Irish Writers (Dublin: Lilliput 1985), adds Col. Dawson of Aherlow [‘Squeeze down his bones, oh ye stones ... He would whip streams of blood down their quarters’]. Poems ed. Ui Duinnin [as above], and Risteárd Ó Foghludha (Dublin 1933, rep. 1935, 1944).
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)