Éamann Ó hOrchaidh (

fl. ''Floruit'' (; abbreviated fl. or occasionally flor.; from Latin for "they flourished") denotes a date or period during which a person was known to have been alive or active. In English, the unabbreviated word may also be used as a noun indicatin ...

1817) was an

Irish Irish may refer to: Common meanings * Someone or something of, from, or related to: ** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe ***Éire, Irish language name for the isle ** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...

scribe A scribe is a person who serves as a professional copyist, especially one who made copies of manuscripts before the invention of automatic printing. The profession of the scribe, previously widespread across cultures, lost most of its promi ...

and

translator Translation is the communication of the Meaning (linguistic), meaning of a #Source and target languages, source-language text by means of an Dynamic and formal equivalence, equivalent #Source and target languages, target-language text. The ...

Biography

Little is known of Ó hOrchaidh. To date, the only item of his work is a copy of ''Cúirt an Mheán Oíche'' ('the Midnight Court') by the Co. Clare poet,

Brian Merriman Brian Merriman or in Irish Brian Mac Giolla Meidhre (c. 1747 – 27 July 1805) was an Irish language bard, farmer, and hedge school teacher from rural County Clare. His single surviving work of substance, the 1000-line long Dream vision poem ( ...

, composed about 1780. The manuscript containing it is held in Dublin at the library of the

Royal Irish Academy The Royal Irish Academy (RIA; ga, Acadamh Ríoga na hÉireann), based in Dublin, is an academic body that promotes study in the sciences, humanities and social sciences. It is Ireland's premier List of Irish learned societies, learned socie ...

, but up to 2018 there was no record of it containing a version of the poem. Its value lies in the fact that it is written in the badly-attested

Connacht Irish Connacht Irish () is the dialect of the Irish language spoken in the province of Connacht. Gaeltacht regions in Connacht are found in Counties Mayo (notably Tourmakeady, Achill Island and Erris) and Galway (notably in parts of Connemara and on ...

County Roscommon "Steadfast Irish heart" , image_map = Island of Ireland location map Roscommon.svg , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Ireland , subdivision_type1 = Province , subdivision_name1 = Connacht , subdi ...

rather than the

Munster Irish Munster Irish () is the dialect of the Irish language spoken in the province of Munster. Gaeltacht regions in Munster are found in the Gaeltachtaí of the Dingle Peninsula in west County Kerry, in the Iveragh Peninsula in south Kerry, in Cape ...

County Clare County Clare ( ga, Contae an Chláir) is a county in Ireland, in the Southern Region and the province of Munster, bordered on the west by the Atlantic Ocean. Clare County Council is the local authority. The county had a population of 118,817 ...

. Both dialects are now extinct, with Ó hOrchaidh's manuscript one of the last featuring Connacht orthography and vocabulary and how Irish was pronounced in east Co. Galway and south Co. Roscommon (see

Uí Maine U or u, is the twenty-first and sixth-to-last letter and fifth vowel letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''u'' (pro ...

), rendering its value quite high. Ó hOrchaidh's version was discovered in 2018 by

dialectologist Dialectology (from Greek , ''dialektos'', "talk, dialect"; and , ''-logia'') is the scientific study of linguistic dialect, a sub-field of sociolinguistics. It studies variations in language based primarily on geographic distribution and their assoc ...

and

sociolinguist Sociolinguistics is the descriptive study of the effect of any or all aspects of society, including cultural norms, expectations, and context, on the way language is used, and society's effect on language. It can overlap with the sociology of l ...

Professor

Brian Ó Curnáin Brian Ó Curnáin is an Irish Dialectologist. Ó Curnáin is a native of Dublin and spent time in the Connemara Gaeltacht during his youth. He is a researcher in the School of Celtic Studies, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, and has publish ...

of the

Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies The Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies (DIAS) ( ga, Institiúid Ard-Léinn Bhaile Átha Cliath) is a statutory independent research institute in Ireland. It was established in 1940 on the initiative of the Taoiseach, Éamon de Valera, in Dub ...

. Ó hOrchaidh wrote it in 1817 in An Bhearaidh Bheag (Barry Beg) townland, Kiltoom parish, west of

Lough Ree Lough Ree () is a lake in the midlands of Ireland, the second of the three major lakes on the River Shannon. Lough Ree is the second largest lake on the Shannon after Lough Derg. The other two major lakes are Lough Allen to the north, and Loug ...

and

Athlone Athlone (; ) is a town on the border of County Roscommon and County Westmeath, Ireland. It is located on the River Shannon near the southern shore of Lough Ree. It is the second most populous town in the Midlands Region with a population of ...

. With translation, his scribal note at the end of the text reads:

Crioch le Cúirt an Meón áoighthe liomsa. Édhmonn Ó hórróchodh air an Marráighbheag a nguirr do bhaille athalúin. agus air na chríochneamh an threas lá don Mhaolluis aois an tíagharna náomhtha Dia na glódhaire May 3rd 1817./The end of The Midnight Court by me Éamann Ó hOrchaidh in Barry Beg near Athlone. And finished on the third day of May in the year of the Holy Lord, God of Glory, May 3rd 1817.

The surname is now rendered O'Hora, or Hore.

References

* ''The Surnames of Ireland'',

Edward MacLysaght Edgeworth Lysaght, later Edward Anthony Edgeworth Lysaght, and from 1920 Edward MacLysaght ( ga, Éamonn Mac Giolla Iasachta; 6 November 1887 – 4 March 1986) was a genealogist of twentieth century Ireland. His numerous books on Irish surnames b ...

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...

, 1978.

External links

* https://www.rte.ie/news/nuacht/2018/1001/999229-chuirt-an-mhean-oiche-i-ngaeilge-ros-comain-aimsithe/ * https://www.rte.ie/news/2018/0926/998249-roscommon-irish-version-of-the-midnight-court-found/ * https://tuairisc.ie/leagan-connachtach-de-cuirt-an-mhean-oiche-aimsithe/ * https://www.johngrenham.com/findasurname.php?surname=Hore {{DEFAULTSORT:Ó hOrchaidh, Éamann Writers from County Roscommon Irish scribes Irish-language writers 19th-century Irish people

Biography

See also

References

External links