Life
[Séamus Ó Casaide]; one-time editor of Irish Book Lover;
compiler of A Book of Irish and Scottish Gaelic Verse (1928); also, A
Typographical Gazetteer of Ireland, or The Beginnings of Printing in Irish
Towns (Dublin 1923), and The Irish Language in Belfast and Co.
Down, AD. 1601-1860 (Dublin 1930).
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Quotations
Seamus
Ó Casaide, A Book of Irish and Scottish Gaelic Verse, Bibliographical
Society of Ireland pamphlet, Vol. III no. 6 (1928) [pp.59-70]. Half printed
and half MS, acquired by Seamus Ó Casaide in 1922, with hand-written
date 1724 and a Glaswegian owner, T. R. Ferguson, in 1858; identical with
Connolly’s Sale Cat. "select Irish poems, translated into English,
with original Text and MS; adds. The first part of two equal sections
is printed, the second MS of poems by MacCuarta and other authors. Ó
Casaide concludes from circumstantial evidence [see infra] that the editor
and translator was Charles H Wilson, and the date of publication 1792
or a year or two earlier. The place of printing was probably Dublin, and
the printer Joseph Hill who printed Wilson’s Resolutions of the Volunteers
of Ireland, using the same watermark paper. Items are in originals and
translations (by unnamed authors are, I] The song of Dearg; Laoi an Deirg
by Padraig Ó Doibhlin, is held in BML, Egerton 164; also Scottish
versions extant. II] To Colonel Vallancey, poetical address of 114 lines,
beginning "Let there be Light", the Great Jehovah said",
by presumably author, pays tribute to Lhuyd, Rawdon, Vallancey. Ó
Casaide supplies notes on Vallancey, including a ref. to the obit. Gentleman’s
Magazine, 1812, stating that he died in 8th Aug. 1812 at the age 92nd;
on this basis he challenges the DNB and Webb birth-dates of 1721, substituting
16 Apr. 1724, and citing poss. Windsor as his birthplace. Also notes on
the others named; and ftn. citing Eugene O’Curry unpubl. catalogue
of RIA MSS. Vallancey’s Green Book, MS in RIA, includes ref.
to proposals in 1750 to print a dictionary by a schoolmaster Crab, died.
c.1762, compiled about 1740; sold by his widow to William Burton Conyngham
and presented to Vallancey; Thomas Jones auctioned Vallancey’s library
in Feb. 1813, Lot 1281 [in extant catalogue] being Dictionarium trilingue
[sic] sive Dictionarium Anglo Latino Hibernicum, sive Lingua hibernica
rediviva, 1747, or an English, Latin and Irish Dictionary, author’s
title; bought for a Dr Adam Clarke and removed to England, it was found
in Evans’s bookshop by Hardiman in 1829, having been sent for sale
from France; now preserved in RIA in three large vols. as 24q 19-21 III]
Oran an tSamhraidh, misprinted tSambraidh. IV] From the Irish of Thad
Ruddy, Ode to Hugh O’Neil, ‘Once happy Greece, for arts renown’d’,
7 stanzas and chorus. Ó Rodaighe (mac Gearoid Oig), of Crossfield,
Co Leitrim, fl.1700 [see O’Reilly, Irish Writers, 1820; Ir. Arch.
Soc. Misc., vol. I, 1846; and TCD MS H 6 15] lawyer, antiquarian and poet;
subject of several Irish poems; probably author of untraced ode; few specimens
of his work surviving. V] Oran gaoil, 9 stanzas. VI] Colin And Selina,
A Tale, 20 quatrains. VII] Oran do Mhorair Ghlean-urchaidh, 3 stanzas.
VIII] Laoi Thailc Mc Trein, 20 quatrains; with eight quatrains
of An tabhran. IX] An Teasgasg Rioghdha, corresponding closely
to RIA MS 23 A 45, written by Muiris MacGorman, Northern schoolmaster
and scribe, ob.1794, who helped Vallancey and Charlotte Brooke; An tabhran
[chorus?] some quatrains corresponds to some quatrains in Tomas Ó
Rathaill’s Danfhocail, 1921; other quatrains correspond to five edited
by Tadhg Ó Flannagain in Trans. Gaelic Soc. of Dublin in 1808,
which also contains Tegasc Flatha, and states that both poems were addressed
to Donnchagh Ó Briain, 4th Earl of Thomond, by Tadhg MacDaire MacBruaidheadha,
fl.1600. X] Oran Gaoil; Ode to a Relation, "O Mary, fairer than spring",
6 stanzas. XI] Plearaca Na Ruarach, 97 lines omitting line 60; irish text
as published in Vallancey’s Irish Grammar with Swift’s
trans. in 2nd ed. 1781; reissued 1782; but not in 1st ed. 1773; other
eds. of Irish text published by Charles Henry Wilson, 1782; Walter Scott,
1814, with his own trans. of lines 73-96, again in 1829; Tadhg Ó
Coindialghain in 1829[?]; William Hudson in 1842; Douglas Hyde in 1890,
and Tomás Ó Maille in 1916. Joseph C Walker in Historical
Memoirs (1786); Hugh MacGauran (ob.1710). XII] The Feast of O’Rourke,
a trans. "O’Rourke revel rout/Let no person forget", 100
lines. XIII] Aoimbo agus Umbo; in praise of drink; versions in Hardiman
and Petrie. XIV] Do.; trans. XV] Seumus Meic Cuart, poem by, "Bfearr
liom gearaan bhain i Birrnn". XVI] Do., "If thro’ life’s
road I’m doomed to ride". XVII] Queen Alla’s Lamentation;
another version and trans. appeared in Philip Barron’s Ancient Ireland,
1835; also in Sean Ó Dalaigh Ossianic Soc. Transactions (1859).
XVIII] Tail Mac Trein, trans. Book ends at p.96 without translation of
last six stanzas of Irish verses (on pp.62-63). NOTES, III, V, and VII
by Donnchadh Macantsaoir [ban nan-oran, b. Drumliaghart, Argyllshire,
d. Edin. 1812; VII, III (song of Summer), VII, IX, XV, XIII, XI occur
in a section of an MS written by Edward O’Reilly in the order shown;
the MS owned by Hardiman, and now in BML. An Irish MS of 1795 in TCD contains
XIII, XV, IX, XI, XII and XIV, as well as VIII earlier. ALSO NOTICED,
C H Wilson, b. Bailieborough, N. Ireland, publ. Poems, translated
from the Irish language into the English, 48pp., quarto, ded. Lord Rawdon,
and containing song Tuireadh Phegigh Dein, [another prose trans. of work
my Carroll O’Daly, and Plearaca na Ruarcach. In The Wandering Islander,
or the History of Mr Charles North, 1792; other works known to be by him
appeared in 1798, 1799, 1802, 1804, 1808, 1809, and 1811; while Walker’s
reference to Swift’s trans. in Memoirs mentions that "a faithful
translation of Pleraca na Ruarcach has since been published by Charles
Wilson, a neglected genius now struggling with adversity in London; a
further reference in Walker to his Irish Poems, 1782, places the date
of his removal to London between 1782 and 1786, but Hardiman put it at
1791. Hardiman writes – or quotes – to the effect that in the
year 1792 a trans. was published by Wilson who afterwards ‘repaired
to that great theatre of Irish talent and Irish disappointment, London,
where, in essaying "- To clim[b]/The steep where Fame’s proud
temple shines afar/He sunk, like most of his countrymen, unnoticed and
unknown.’ There is also a footnote in William H. Drummond, Ancient
Irish Minstrelsy, 1852, attached to remarks on Charlotte Brooke, regarding
Wilson, ‘an unfortunate neglected Irish genius’, who published
a few songs in Irish.
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)