Life
?1603-1694 [var. Dáibdhid, anglice David O’Bruadair/Broderick]; b. East
Cork; prob. ed. in bardic school, learning Irish, Latin, English, poetry,
and Gaelic genealogy; long resident in Co. Limerick; took employment as
a farm-labourer but chiefly maintained himself by translating genealogies;
composed dán direach metre correctly, 20 poems extant; virulently
anti-Protestant and anti-English, giving evidence of feelings towards
settler gentry in Munster; his “Summary of Ireland’s Purgatory”
is a review of events during 1641-84, chiefly lamenting the extirpation
of Gaelic noble families; also wrote a poem beginning, ‘Woe to those
who are not gloomy boors’ [i.e., not the Protestant English]; patronised
by Sir John Fitzgerald, who was brought to London under suspicion of involvement
in the Titus Oates plot against Parliament [DIW]; Fitzgerald left Ireland
for France after 1691; lamented end of Gaelic bardic tradition in “D’aithle
na bhfiledh n-uasal” [‘after the great poets have died there
will never again be light’] and “The Shipwreck”, blaming
the Irish aristocracy for the neglect of their traditional arts; later
patronised by John Bourke of Cahirmoyle, Co. Limerick, and MacDonogh MacCarthy
of Duhallow, Co. Cork; d. Jan., at place unknown; poems edited with translations
for Irish Texts Society by John C. McErlean as Duanaire Dháibdhid
Uí Bhruadair, 3 vols. (1910, 1913 & 1917); an MA thesis
on O Bruidair by Seán O’Faolain was printed in part in Earna
(1925); a collection of his poems in translation poems was published
by Michael Hartnett (1985) and later in Haicéad (1993).
DNB DIW DIB OCIL
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Works
John C. McErlean, ed., Duanaire Dáibhid Uí Bhruadair/Poems
of David O’Bruadair, 3 vols. [Irish Texts Society, Vols. 11,
13 & 18] (London: David Nutt 1910, 1913, 1917) [infra].
Poems incl. “Adoramus Te Christe” [‘Adhraim thú, a thaidhbhse ár gcrú’; c.1648]; “Créacht do dháil mé” [1652]; “Iomdha scéimh ar chur na cluana” [epithalamium on the marriage of Una Bourke of Cahirmoyle]; “Cuirfead cluain ar chrobhaing ghealghall” [another for her sister Eleanor, 1675]; “Is mairg nach bhfuil im dhubhthuata” [c.1675]; “Muirear re mí” [ 1678]; “Seirbhíseach seirgthe” [‘A shrewish, barren, bony, nosey servant’; a scatalogical satire on a serving girl]; “Caithréim an Dara Shéamus” [1687]; “Caithréim Phádraig Sáirséal” [Sarsfield at Ballyneety]; “A chaithbhaile dár tháirgeas” [anticipating the betrayal of the Limerick Treaty]; “An Longbhriseadh [The Shipwreck”; on the Flight of the Wild Geese]; “Eire”; “Through tearful Banbha news hath spread ”, and “Woe to man that leaves on his vagaries”, “The high poets are gone”, &c.
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Criticism
Michael Hartnett, ‘Wrestling with O’Bruadair’, in Séan
MacReamoinn, ed., The Pleasures of Gaelic Poetry (London: Penguin
1982).
Declan Kiberd, ‘Saving Civilization: Céitinn and Ó Bruadair’, in Irish Classics (London: Granta 2000), pp.25-38.
Sean O’Faolain, [on the ‘Epithalamium’], King of
the Beggars, p.13; ‘a queer, mad, arcane, Walpurgisnacht
of an Epithalamium – all so local, parochial, traditional, allusive,
conventional, so very Irish of the Bardic Tradition, that it s now half
unintelligible and seems to be somewhat obscene. [...] He is walking into
the dark, with empty pockets, and God knows if the thing he is making
up in his queer brain, for he had a very queer brain, could ever be called
poetry.’
Norman Vance, Irish Literature, A Social History (Basil Blackwell 1990), pp.37-39.
Michael Hartnett, ‘Wrestling with O’Bruadair’, in Séan MacReamoinn, ed., The Pleasures of Gaelic Poetry (London: Penguin 1982).
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Notes
Dictionary of National Biography; David O’Bruadair,
fl.1650-94; Irish poet, violent opponent of Protestantism and everything
English; wrote correctly in the difficult Irish metre, dán direch
[sic]; Jacobite; evidence of the feelings of the Irish-speaking Munster
gentry in his writings; about twenty poems extant.
Hyland Books (1995) lists John C. McErlean as Duanaire Dáibhid [sic] Uí Bhruadair: ... Poems of David O’Bruadair, Pt. II. [ITS Vol. XIII, 1st iss., 1913 [sic].
J. C. McErlean remarks: ‘[1674] marks an epoch in the poet’s life. Down to that year everything seems to have prospered with him, but on the third of April, 1674, we find him complaining that his “sleep is troubled by the sight of the universal confusion around him”.’ (Preface to Poems of David O’Bruadair, [ITS Vol. 11] 1910, p.xxvii; quoted in Callum Boyle, UG Diss., UUC 2003.)
“An Longbhriseadh [The Shipwreck]”: a single quatrain of the poem on a ship-wreck, apparently witness by O’Rathaille, has survived.
Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)