Maidhc Ó Flaithearta was a member of the

Irish National Land League The Irish National Land League ( Irish: ''Conradh na Talún''), also known as the Land League, was an Irish political organisation of the late 19th century which organised tenant farmers in their resistance to exactions of landowners. Its prima ...

and father of

Liam O'Flaherty Liam O'Flaherty ( ; 28 August 1896 – 7 September 1984) was an Irish novelist and short-story writer, and one of the foremost socialist writers in the first part of the 20th century, writing about the common people's experience and from their ...

, .

Biography

Giving his pedigree as Maidhc Mhicil Phádraic Bheartlaiméid Bhriain Bheartlaiméid, Ó Flaithearta was descended from Mícheál Ó Flaithearta, the first inhabitant of the village of Gort na gCapall,

Inishmore Inishmore ( , or ) is the largest of the Aran Islands in Galway Bay, off the west coast of Ireland. With an area of and a population of 820 (as of 2016), it is the second-largest island off the Irish coast (after Achill) and most populo ...

. He was leader of the village, and

eloped Elopement is a marriage which is conducted in a sudden and secretive fashion, sometimes involving a hurried flight away from one's place of residence together with one's beloved with the intention of getting married without parental approval. A ...

with sixteen-year-old Maggie Ganly, daughter of Thomas Ganly of Mainistir. Her son, Liam, related the story of the elopement, as told by Maggie:

She told it as one tells a fairy-tale to amuse a child, how her handsome young lover came by night on horseback to her father's house and abducted her, at the very moment when another suitor from the mainland was there asking for her hand; how she was married at dawn in the chapel and went off to live in an old deserted house in our village, penniless and unforgiven by her parents. Her fairy-tale ended with her marriage. After that, her life was a tale of hardship and misery, and endless struggle to find food for her many children.

Maidhc was imprisoned a number of times on suspection of shooting a

bailiff A bailiff is a manager, overseer or custodian – a legal officer to whom some degree of authority or jurisdiction is given. There are different kinds, and their offices and scope of duties vary. Another official sometimes referred to as a '' ...

, during the

Irish Land War The Land War () was a period of agrarian agitation in rural Ireland (then wholly part of the United Kingdom) that began in 1879. It may refer specifically to the first and most intense period of agitation between 1879 and 1882, or include later ...

. He and his family, including their first son, Tom Maidhc O'Flaherty, still a child, narrowly escaped eviction. Tom later remarked of Maidhc:

He had lived a rather eventful life and an eviction was only another incident. He was a
Fenian The word ''Fenian'' () served as an umbrella term for the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) and their affiliate in the United States, the Fenian Brotherhood. They were secret political organisations in the late 19th and early 20th centuries ...
and a Land Leaguer, and most of the time he forgot he was the father of a large young family. He was used to police attentions and accustomed to jails. ... My mother always expressed the belief that if my father thought of his own affairs a little more and about those of the community a little less, the world would be a much better place to live in. She did not understand that she had fallen in love with and married an incurable rebel, and not an ordinary husband. And rebels are easier to fall in love with than to live with.

References

* ''Aranmen all'', Ó Flaithearta, 1935. * ''Stones of Aran:Labyrinth'',

Tim Robinson (cartographer) Timothy Drever Robinson (1935 – 3 April 2020) was an English writer, artist and cartographer. His most famous works include books about Ireland's Aran Islands and Connemara, in the West of Ireland. He was also well known for producing exceptio ...

, Lilliput Press, 1995 {{DEFAULTSORT:O Flaithearta, Maidhc People from the Aran Islands Activists for Irish land reform Members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood 19th-century Irish people