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Ní Úrdail, Meidhbhín
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Ní Úrdail, Meidhbhín
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Ní Úrdail, Meidhbhín
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- PublicationPatrick Ferriter (1856-1924): an Irish Scholar at Home and AbroadScholarly research from the 1980s onwards on emigration from Ireland to New York informs us that by the second half of the nineteenth century, the city was home to a significant number of Irish migrants. Research by the late Professor Kenneth Nilsen, in particular, makes for fascinating reading about the efforts of a number of literate Irish speakers who, on settling in New York, set about actively promoting their native language in the city. Early records of the Catholic Church in New York also yield some evidence of the use of the Irish language. The city’s first Catholic pastor, for example, an Offaly-born Capuchin friar by the name of Father Charles/Maurice Whelan (1741–1806) began ministering in St. Peter’s Church in 1785, and was described as being “more fluent in Gaelic and French than in English.” Following the establishment in Dublin of the Irish literary society known as the Ossianic Society on St. Patrick’s Day 1853, moreover, a New York branch was founded in 1858 and devoted itself, among other things, to Irish-language instruction.
442 - PublicationPádraig Feiritéar (1856–1924): Scoláire Gaeilge sa Bhaile is i gCéinIs léir ar an taighde scolártha ar an imirce ó Éirinn go Nua Eabhrac atá curtha ar fáil ó na 1980aí ar aghaidh go raibh líon substaintiúil Éireannach lonnaithe sa chathair seo faoin dara leath den naoú céad déag.1 Tá eolas an-spéisiúil curtha ar fáil go háirithe ag an Ollamh Kenneth Nilsen, nach maireann, mar gheall ar chainteoirí a bhí liteartha sa Ghaeilge a luigh amach go gníomhach ar a dteanga dhúchais a chur chun cinn i gcathair Nua Eabhrac tar éis dóibh socrú síos inti. Tá fianaise áirithe ó thaifid luatha na hEaglaise Caitlicí i Nua Eabhrac ar úsáid na Gaeilge.
267 - PublicationAthfhéachaint ar bhailiúchán lámhscríbhinní an FheiritéaraighI measc na lámhscríbhinní Gaeilge atá ar buanchoimeád i Leabharlann an Choláiste Ollscoile, Baile Átha Cliath, tá naoi gcinn déag ar fhichid in aon bhailiúchán amháin ar a dtugtar Bailiúchán an Fheiritéaraigh. I gcuimhne ar an únaeir bunaidh, Pádraig Feiritéar (1856–1924) ón mBaile Uachtarach i gCorca Dhuibhne, atá an bailiúchán seo ainmnithe, scoláire Gaeilge agus gníomhaí láir i gConradh na Talún ina cheantar dúchais idir na blianta 1885 agus 1891. Ó fhianaise a chuid lámhscríbhinní, d’fhógair sé go raibh sé ‘ag fágaint’ Chorca Dhuibhne ar 5 Eanair, 1895, agus i dtreo dheireadh na míosa céanna chuaigh sé an cuan amach go Meiriceá ar bord an Cephalonia, stéiméir a thóg comhlacht an Cunard in ochtóidí groda an naoú céad déag chun imircigh a iompar go Boston ó Learpholl agus ó Chóbh Chorcaí (Queenstown san am úd, dar ndóigh). Fé 9 Márta, 1895, bhí Massachusetts bainte amach aige agus é lonnaithe i gcathair Quincy. Is eol ó cholafain agus ó nótaí éagsúla a ghabhann lena chuid oibre i Meiriceá ina dhiaidh sin go raibh sé lonnaithe i Chelsea anuas go dtí 1902. Bhí sé lonnaithe i Nua Eabhrac fén mbliain 1904 agus de réir dhaonáireamh an stáit úd don mbliain 1905 bhí sé ina lóistéir i Manhattan ag ‘Charles O Farrell’, Éireannach, 45 bliain d’aois. I gcathair Nua Eabhrac a chaith sé formhór a shaoil go dtí 1923. Ón uair go raibh teipthe ar an tsláinte aige le bliain fén am san, thug mac dearthár leis, Mícheál Feiritéar, a uncail go dtí a áit chónaithe, Chicago. Is ansan a cailleadh Pádraig ar 21 Iúil, 1924. Cuireadh dhá lá ina dhiaidh sin i reilg Mount Carmel é, agus Proof Reading Printing a luadh mar shlí bheatha leis ar a theastas báis.
201 - PublicationAn t-ár agus an t-ocras: a Clare scribe's response to the Great FamineMÍCHEÁL Ó RAGHALLAIGH, alias Michael O’Reilly, has come to be associated with Ennistymon in the northwest barony of Corcomroe, Co. Clare. Published accounts of him include a brief mention in an overview of the poets of that county published by T. F. O’Rahilly as well as those by Pádraig Ó Fiannachta and Eilís Ní Dheá. Pádraig de Brún has suggested that the ‘Michael Reilly’ employed as a teacher for the Clare district by the Irish Society in 1826 is perhaps the same as our scribe. In light of a colophon written in 1855 in which Ó Raghallaigh tells his reader that he was seventy years of age, he was born in 1785 or 1786. Moreover, according to a note by a fellow scribe, Domhnall Mac Consaidín (fl. c.1845–1876) of Kilnamona in the barony of Inchiquin, it appears that Ó Raghallaigh may have been a native of Co. Cavan and it would seem that he died in 1856. Indeed, if we are to believe what George Macnamara mentioned in passing in an article on the O’Davorens of Cahermacnaghten in northwest Clare, it was a particularly gruesome death, Ó Raghallaigh having been ‘poisoned by rat-poison, probably arsenic, accidentally put in a cake of which he partook, sometime in the early fifties of the last [i.e. nineteenth] century, and his books and MSS. were scattered to the four winds of heaven’.
428 - PublicationThe battle of Clontarf in later Irish traditionIn considering the battle of Clontarf in later Irish tradition, an obvious starting point is a tale known as CCT which, according to the present writer, was one of the most popular Irish prose texts to have come down to us in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Irish manuscripts. Its popularity may be ascribed in part to two reasons. First, at the heart of the tale’s message is the fact that the battle of Clontarf amounted to Brian Bóraimhe’s victory over centuries of foreign heathen oppression, a message which, as will emerge below, appealed to Irish scribes. Second, rather than being a laconic record of events, CCT presents the historical battle as a story in which ‘heroes shine and villains play their sinister parts and dramatic incidents are invented or exaggerated for the benefit of the reading public’. These two reasons are not exceptional to this prose tale, of course, as the same could be said (and indeed has been said) about the earliest literary account we have in Irish concerning the battle, that in the early-twelfth century Irish text CGG. Many of the plot details in the Modern Irish story, in fact, ultimately derive from those forming part of the account of the battle in the latter Middle Irish text.
458 - PublicationOidhreacht Na Lámhscríbhiní Gaeilge: Roinnt Seod i Leabharlann an Ruiséalaigh, Má NuadBhain mórán sruthanna le taighde an Mhoinsíneora Pádraig Ó Fiannachta (1927–2016) a choimeád muilte na scoláireachta acadúla ag meilt, ina measc a chuid taighde ar lámhscríbhinní na Gaeilge. Ní hamháin gur chreid sé gurbh iad seo tobar luachmhar ár n-oidhreachta náisiúnta, ach d’fhéadfadh scoláirí eile i ngort an Léinn Cheiltigh a bheith ag taoscadh as an tobar céanna a bhuíochas ar an obair thábhachtach chláraithe agus innéacsaithe a chuir sé i gcrích. Thug sé ‘an Ghaeltacht eile’ ar a bhfuil d’ábhar sna lámhscríbhinní agus ceataí mhór d’eagrú litríocht na Gaeilge trí chéile, dar leis, na lámhscríbhinní a bheith gan clárú: Lámhscríbhinní mar iad seo an Ghaeltacht eile atá againn agus cuid an-luachmhar dár n-oidhreacht iad. Creidim gur geall le hurrús ar ár n-oidhreacht liteartha clárú ár lámhscríbhinní. Ina theannta sin ní féidir dúinn eolas iomlán a chur ar an oidhreacht chéanna gan na foinsí féin a bheith ar a laghad cláraithe. Ba dheacair, ar ndóigh, lámhscríbhinn a dhul amú dá mbeadh clár di foilsithe — cé gur tharla a leithéid. (ÓFiannachta 1995a: 38).
212 - PublicationThe Ó Longáin scribal familyOver four thousand Irish manuscripts are still in existence today and most of these were produced during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. When we consider the scribes who produced these handwritten books of Irish prose and poetry at that time, we know that the contribution of those based in Cork city and county features very prominently indeed, not least of course, because of the evidence provided by Professor Breandán Ó Conchúir in his pioneering study Scríobhaithe Chorcaí 1700-1850 (1982). That important book discusses over two hundred scribes who flourished between 1700 and 1850, and those associated with Carraig na bhFear feature particularly strongly.
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