Donnchadh Ruadh Mac Conmara (1715–1810) was an Irish schoolmaster of a

hedge school Hedge schools ( Irish names include '' scoil chois claí'', ''scoil ghairid'' and ''scoil scairte'') were small informal secret and illegal schools, particularly in 18th- and 19th-century Ireland, designed to secretly provide the rudiments of ...

, Jacobite propagandist,

anti-hero An antihero (sometimes spelled as anti-hero) or antiheroine is a main character in a story who may lack conventional heroic qualities and attributes, such as idealism, courage, and morality. Although antiheroes may sometimes perform action ...

Irish folklore Irish folklore ( ga, béaloideas) refers to the folktales, balladry, music, dance, and so forth, ultimately, all of folk culture. Irish folklore, when mentioned to many people, conjures up images of banshees, fairies, leprechauns and people gat ...

, and composer of poetry in both

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 Cap ...

and in the

Irish language outside Ireland The Irish language originated in Ireland and has historically been the dominant language of the Irish people. They took it with them to a number of other countries, and in Scotland and the Isle of Man it gave rise to Scottish Gaelic and Manx, res ...

Life

He was born into the

Irish clan Irish clans are traditional kinship groups sharing a common surname and heritage and existing in a lineage-based society, originating prior to the 17th century. A clan (or ''fine'' in Irish) included the chief and his patrilineal relatives; howe ...

Mac Conmara at

Cratloe Cratloe () is a village in County Clare, Ireland, situated between Limerick and Shannon in the mid-west of Ireland. It is possible that the name derives from ''Croit-shliabh'' meaning "hump-backed hill", referring to Woodcock Hill. The present ...

( ga, An Chreatalach),

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 118,81 ...

(). According to the

oral tradition Oral tradition, or oral lore, is a form of human communication wherein knowledge, art, ideas and cultural material is received, preserved, and transmitted orally from one generation to another. Vansina, Jan: ''Oral Tradition as History'' (1985 ...

, Donnchadh Ruadh left Ireland and studied abroad to enter the priesthood of the still illegal and underground

Catholic Church in Ireland , native_name_lang = ga , image = Armagh, St Patricks RC cathedral.jpg , imagewidth = 200px , alt = , caption = St Patrick's Cathedral, Armagh. , abbreviation = , type ...

, but was expelled from the

Irish College in Rome The Pontifical Irish College is a Roman Catholic seminary for the training and education of priests, in Rome. The College is located at #1, Via dei Santi Quattro, and serves as a residence for clerical students from all over the world. Designated ...

and then spent several years wandering in

Catholic Europe The Catholic Church in Europe is part of the worldwide Catholic Church in full communion with the Holy See in Rome, including represented Eastern Catholic missions. Demographically, Catholics are the largest religious group in Europe. Demograph ...

. Following his return to Ireland through the port of

Waterford "Waterford remains the untaken city" , mapsize = 220px , pushpin_map = Ireland#Europe , pushpin_map_caption = Location within Ireland##Location within Europe , pushpin_relief = 1 , coordinates ...

(), the poet settled in the

Sliabh gCua Sliabh gCua (formerly anglicized as 'Slieve Gua' or 'Slieve Goe')Tempan, Paul"Sliabh in Irish Place-Names". Queen's University Belfast, 2008. p.29 is a traditional district of west County Waterford, Ireland, between Clonmel and Dungarvan, cover ...

district between the Comeraghs ( ga, Na Comaraigh) and

Knockmealdown Mountains The Knockmealdown Mountains ( ga, Sléibhte Chnoc Mhaoldomhnaigh) are a mountain range located on the border of counties Tipperary and Waterford in Ireland, running east and west between the two counties. The highest peak of the range is Knockmea ...

( ga, Sléibhte Chnoc Mhaoldomhnaigh) of County Waterford, where he remains a well-known

in local

. Around 1741, he was appointed assistant master of the illegal Catholic

at Seskinane, near Touraneena ( ga, Tuar an Fhíona), County Waterford. He is said locally to have been a highly talented at Gaelic games and to have once led his students to victory upon the pitch against a rival hurling team from a neighbouring district. He is said to have sailed for Newfoundland ( ga, Talamh an Éisc) around 1743. Donnchadh Ruadh was a notorious rake and allegedly fled to Newfoundland to escape the wrath of a local man whose daughter the poet had impregnated. During his residence at the port of St. John's ( ga, Baile Sheáin), Mac Conmara composed multiple Irish language poems, including praises of Newfoundland and

war poet A war poet is a poet who participates in a war and writes about their experiences, or a non-combatant who writes poems about war. While the term is applied especially to those who served during the First World War, the term can be applied to a p ...

ry promoting the

Jacobite rising of 1745 The Jacobite rising of 1745, also known as the Forty-five Rebellion or simply the '45 ( gd, Bliadhna Theàrlaich, , ), was an attempt by Charles Edward Stuart to regain the Monarchy of Great Britain, British throne for his father, James Franci ...

. Even though the mixing of languages in verse is now generally assumed to date only from the radical innovations of early 20th century

Modernist poetry Modernist poetry refers to poetry written between 1890 and 1950 in the tradition of modernist literature, but the dates of the term depend upon a number of factors, including the nation of origin, the particular school in question, and the biases ...

, Mac Conmara composed a poem in St. John's with alternating lines in

Newfoundland English Newfoundland English is a term referring to any of several accents and dialects of Atlantic Canadian English found in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Most of these differ substantially from the English commonly spoken elsewhere in ...

and

. The English lines are

praise poetry A panegyric ( or ) is a formal public speech or written verse, delivered in high praise of a person or thing. The original panegyrics were speeches delivered at public events in ancient Athens. Etymology The word originated as a compound of grc ...

of a group of Englishmen whom the Bard met in St. John's, while the following lines in Munster Irish turn the

Anglophilia An Anglophile is a person who admires or loves England, its people, its culture, its language, and/or its various accents. Etymology The word is derived from the Latin word '' Anglii'' and Ancient Greek word φίλος ''philos'', meaning "frie ...

of the English lines upon its head and gives the poem a very, very subversive message. The poems that Donnchadh Ruadh Mac Conmara composed in the

Irish language in Newfoundland The Irish language was once widely spoken on the island of Newfoundland before largely disappearing there by the early 20th century.

remain immortal works of Modern literature in Irish. After leaving Newfoundland, he continued working, for a long period, as a sailor and his poem ''Bán Chnoic Éireann Óigh'' ("The Fair Hills of Holy Ireland"), is said to have been composed in

Hamburg (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...

. After returning to Ireland, Donnchadh Ruadh converted to

Protestantism Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...

and read aloud an Oath of Abjuration inside the still extant

Church of Ireland The Church of Ireland ( ga, Eaglais na hÉireann, ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Kirk o Airlann, ) is a Christian church in Ireland and an autonomous province of the Anglican Communion. It is organised on an all-Ireland basis and is the secon ...

parish at

Carrick-on-Suir Carrick-on-Suir () is a town in County Tipperary, Ireland. It lies on both banks of the River Suir. The part on the north bank of the Suir lies in the civil parish of "Carrick", in the historical barony of Iffa and Offa East. The part on the s ...

( ga, Carraig na Siúire). He then joined the Anglican parish at Rossmire, Newtown near

Kilmacthomas Kilmacthomas or Kilmactomas (), often referred to locally as "Kilmac", is a town on the River Mahon in County Waterford, Ireland. It lies on the R677, a road north of the N25 national primary road from Dungarvan to Waterford. History Durin ...

( ga, Coill Mhic Thomáisín). He was briefly appointed as parish clerk but when the

Vicar A vicar (; Latin: '' vicarius'') is a representative, deputy or substitute; anyone acting "in the person of" or agent for a superior (compare "vicarious" in the sense of "at second hand"). Linguistically, ''vicar'' is cognate with the English pre ...

and parishioners discovered how great a rogue he was, Donnchadh Ruadh was dismissed, converted back to the Catholicism, and composed his poem ''Duain na hAithrighe'' ("Song of Repentance"). Following the 1795 death of his close friend and fellow poet

Tadhg Gaelach Ó Súilleabháin Tadhg Gaelach Ó Súilleabháin (c. 1715 – 1795), known in English as Timothy O'Sullivan, was a composer of mostly Christian poetry in the Irish language whose ''Pious Miscellany'' was reprinted over 40 times in the early 19th century. Early l ...

, Donnchadh Ruadh composed a

eulogy A eulogy (from , ''eulogia'', Classical Greek, ''eu'' for "well" or "true", ''logia'' for "words" or "text", together for "praise") is a speech or writing in praise of a person or persons, especially one who recently died or retired, or as ...

for his friend in

New Latin New Latin (also called Neo-Latin or Modern Latin) is the revival of Literary Latin used in original, scholarly, and scientific works since about 1500. Modern scholarly and technical nomenclature, such as in zoological and botanical taxonomy ...

verse. In 1810, at the age of 95, Donnchadh Ruadh died in Newtown and lies buried in the Roman Catholic cemetery there. His death was briefly reported in the ''

Freeman's Journal The ''Freeman's Journal'', which was published continuously in Dublin from 1763 to 1924, was in the nineteenth century Ireland's leading nationalist newspaper. Patriot journal It was founded in 1763 by Charles Lucas and was identified with radi ...

''; "October 6th, 1810, at Newtown, near

, in the 95th year of his age, Denis MacNamara, commonly known by the name Ruadh, or Red-haired, the most celebrated of the modern bards. His compositions will be received and read until the end of time with rapturous admiration and enthusiastic applause."

Legacy

While still teaching at

Synge Street CBS Synge Street CBS (colloquially Synger) is a boys' non-fee-paying state school, under the auspices of the Edmund Rice Schools Trust, located in the Dublin 8 area of Dublin, Ireland. The school was founded in 1864 by Can ...

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 ...

Francis MacManus Francis MacManus (8 March 1909 – 27 November 1965) was an Irish novelist and broadcaster. Life and writings Born in Kilkenny, MacManus was educated in the local Christian Brothers school and later at St. Patrick's College, Dublin and Universi ...

wrote and published a trilogy of

biographical novel The biographical novel is a genre of novel which provides a fictional account of a contemporary or historical person's life. Like other forms of biographical fiction, details are often trimmed or reimagined to meet the artistic needs of the fict ...

s set in Penal times and about the life of Donnchadh Ruadh Mac Conmara. They comprise the novels ''Stand and Give Challenge'' (1934), ''Candle for the Proud'' (1936) and ''Men Withering'' (1939).''Oxford Companion to Irish Literature'' cited at http://www.answers.com/topic/francis-macmanus For a long time, it was doubted whether Donnchadh Ruadh ever even visited Newfoundland. During the 21st century, however,

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...

s discovered that multiple Donnchadh Ruadh poems in the

Irish language Irish ( Standard Irish: ), also known as Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Insular Celtic branch of the Celtic language family, which is a part of the Indo-European language family. Irish is indigenous to the island of Ireland and was ...

contain Gaelicized renderings of words and terms that are unique to

. For this reason, Donnchadh Ruadh's poems are considered the earliest solid evidence of the speaking of the

Irish language in Newfoundland The Irish language was once widely spoken on the island of Newfoundland before largely disappearing there by the early 20th century.

. Edited by Natasha Sumner and Aidan Doyle (2020), ''North American Gaels: Speech, Song, and Story in the Diaspora'', McGill-Queen's University Press. Pages 73-91.

Life

Legacy

See also

References

Further reading