Ein irisches Schmähgedicht aus dem 19. Jahrhundert

Abstract

This paper presents a critical edition of a poem beginning A lucht iúil n Mumhan maorga which, according to its accompanying heading, was composed by Peadar (Peattair) Ó Longáin (b. 1801) from Cork. Only one copy appears to have survived, i.e. that in RIA MS 941 (23 C 10). The poem’s sardonic tone is reminiscent of the seventeenth-century anonymous prose composition Pairlement Chloinne Tomáis, or ‘TheParliament of Clann Tomáis’,and it echoes a continuing underlying theme in the latter work, i.e. the downfall of the native mandarin class and a concomitant loss of native learning. The object of the poet’s scathing tongue is identified in line twenty-eight as Ribeart an méirleach, or ‘Robert the villain’, a representative of a boorish peasant class who slavishly apes an English-orientated gentry.