Tadg Óg Ó hUiginn (born c.1370, died 1448) was an
Irish poet.
Life and background
Ó hUiginn was a member of a well-known Irish family of
bards
In Celtic cultures, a bard is an oral repository and professional story teller, verse-maker, music composer, oral historian and genealogist, employed by a patron (such as a monarch or chieftain) to commemorate one or more of the patron's an ...
, based in
Connacht
Connacht or Connaught ( ; or ), is the smallest of the four provinces of Ireland, situated in the west of Ireland. Until the ninth century it consisted of several independent major Gaelic kingdoms (Uí Fiachrach, Uí Briúin, Uí Maine, C ...
. His father,
Tadhg Mór Ó hUiginn
Tadhg Mór Ó hUiginn was an Irish poet.
Ó hUiginn was a member of a highly regarded Connacht O'Higgins family of bards. His surviving poems include:
* ''Gach éan mar a adhbha''
* ''Slán fat fholcadh''
See also
* O'Higgins family
O' ...
, died in 1391, while all that is known of his mother is her first name,
Áine.
He had an elder brother,
Fearghal Ruadh Ó hUiginn, who succeeded his father as head of the family and died c.1400. The historian of Medieval Gaelic Ireland, Marc Caball, believes him to have been a great-grandson of Tadhg Ó hUiginn, a celebrated poet who died in 1315.
Further personal details are few, but he did marry and have issue. His descendants included
Maol Muire Ó hÚigínn who became an
Archbishop of Tuam
The Archbishop of Tuam ( ; ) is an Episcopal polity, archbishop which takes its name after the town of Tuam in County Galway, Republic of Ireland, Ireland. The title was used by the Church of Ireland until 1839, and is still in use by the Cathol ...
in 1586,
and the poet
Tadhg Dall Ó hUiginn (died c.1591).
The
Irish annals
A number of Irish annals, of which the earliest was the Chronicle of Ireland, were compiled up to and shortly after the end of the 17th century. Annals were originally a means by which monks determined the yearly chronology of feast days. Over ti ...
state that he kept a school for training in
Irish bardic poetry with lodgings for scholars and pilgrims, and died at Kilconla (; ) in the
barony Barony may refer to:
* Barony, the peerage, office of, or territory held by a baron
* Barony, the title and land held in fealty by a feudal baron
* Barony (county division), a type of administrative or geographical division in parts of the British ...
of
Dunmore, County Galway, in 1448. He was buried in the
priory
A priory is a monastery of men or women under religious vows that is headed by a prior or prioress. They were created by the Catholic Church. Priories may be monastic houses of monks or nuns (such as the Benedictines, the Cistercians, or t ...
of
Strade
Straide (), or Strade, is a village in County Mayo, Ireland. It is located on the N58 national secondary road between Foxford and Castlebar. The name Strade is an anglicisation of the Irish words ''an tsráid'', meaning ''the street''.
Str ...
, now in
County Mayo
County Mayo (; ) is a Counties of Ireland, county in Republic of Ireland, Ireland. In the West Region, Ireland, West of Ireland, in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Connacht, it is named after the village of Mayo, County Mayo, Mayo, now ge ...
.
His school at Kilconla was still functioning in 1574, overseen by his descendant,
Domhnall Ó hUiginn.
Poetic works
Ó hUiginn enjoyed a great professional reputation within his own lifetime, and was regarded as a master poet. His work enjoyed a wide range of appreciation, which apparent from the long list of prominent Gaelic-Irish and Anglo-Irish lords who were subjects of his work:
*
O'Donnell
The O'Donnell dynasty ( or ''Ó Domhnaill,'' ''Ó Doṁnaill'' ''or Ua Domaill;'' meaning "descendant of Dónal") were the dominant Irish clan of the kingdom of Tyrconnell in Ulster in the north of medieval and early modern Ireland.
Naming ...
of
Tyrconnell
*
O'Neill of
Tyrone
*
Butler
A butler is a person who works in a house serving and is a domestic worker in a large household. In great houses, the household is sometimes divided into departments, with the butler in charge of the dining room, wine cellar, and pantries, pantr ...
of
Ormond
*
Burke
Burke (; ) is a Normans in Ireland, Norman-Irish surname, deriving from the ancient Anglo-Norman and Hiberno-Norman noble dynasty, the House of Burgh. In Ireland, the descendants of William de Burgh (''circa'' 1160–1206) had the surname'' de B ...
of
Clanricarde
Clanricarde ( ), also known as Mac William Uachtar (Upper Mac William) or the Galway Burkes, were a fully Gaelicised branch of the Hiberno-Norman House of Burgh who were important landowners in Ireland from the 13th to the 20th centuries.
Terr ...
* Mac William
Bourke of
Mayo
* O'Kelly of
Ui Maine
*
O'Carroll
O'Carroll (), also known as simply Carroll, Carrol or Carrell, is a Gaelic Irish clan which is the most prominent sept of the Ciannachta (also known as Clan Cian). Their genealogies claim that they are kindred with the Eóganachta (themsel ...
of
Éile
Éile (; , ), commonly anglicised as Ely, was a medieval petty kingdom in the southern part of the modern county of Offaly and parts of North Tipperary in Ireland. The historic barony of Eliogarty was once a significant portion of the kingdom.
...
(Anglicised as Ely)
*
MacDonnell of
Islay
Islay ( ; , ) is the southernmost island of the Inner Hebrides of Scotland. Known as "The Queen of the Hebrides", it lies in Argyll and Bute just south west of Jura, Scotland, Jura and around north of the Northern Irish coast. The island's cap ...
*
MacDermot of
Moylurg
{{Use dmy dates, date=April 2022
Magh Luirg or Magh Luirg an Dagda, anglicised as Moylurg, was the name of a medieval Irish kingdom located in modern-day County Roscommon, Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It was a sub-kingdom of the kingdom of Connach ...
*
Maguire
The Maguire ( ) family is an Irish clans, Irish clan based in County Fermanagh. The name derives from the Goidelic languages, Gaelic , which is "son of Odhar" meaning 'Wikt:sallow, sallow' or 'pale-faced'.
According to legend, this relates to the ...
of
Fermanagh
Historically, Fermanagh (), as opposed to the modern County Fermanagh, was a kingdom of Gaelic Ireland, associated geographically with present-day County Fermanagh. ''Fir Manach'' originally referred to a distinct kin group of alleged Laigin or ...
*
O'Conor Sligo
*
O'Conor Kerry
Upon the death of his brother in 1400, Tadg Óg composed a poem of lament for Fearghal Ruadh. Written in or around 1400, when Tadg Óg was in his early thirties, it is entitled (also known by the initial line of stanza 14, ).
[Bergin, Osborn, 'Unpublished Irish poems XXV — On the breaking up of a school', in ''Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review'', Vol. 13 (1924), pp. 85–90]
Marc Caball draws attention to Ó hUiginn's success in "composing works of affective power and elegance ... nothwithstanding the somewhat formulaic configuration of the bardic form."
Devotional
Christian poetry
Christian poetry is any poetry that contains Christian teachings, themes, or references. The influence of Christianity on poetry has been great in any area that Christianity has taken hold. Christian poems often directly reference the Bible, whil ...
by Ó hUiginn's formed part of the
Yellow Book of Lecan
The Yellow Book of Lecan (YBL; Irish language, Irish: ''Leabhar Buidhe Leacáin''), or TCD MS 1318 (''olim'' H 2.16), is a History of Ireland (1169–1536), late medieval Irish manuscript.
It contains much of the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology ...
. Extracts of his verse were cited as models of poetic excellence in bardic school and tutorial tracts.
Selected works
* ''A-táid trí comhruig im chionn''
* ''Cia do-ghéabhainn go Gráinne''
* ''Dá bhrághaid uaim i nInis''
* ''Foillsigh do mhíorbhuile, a Mhuire''
See also
*
Sean mac Fergail Óicc Ó hUiccinn, died 1490
*
Philip Bocht Ó hUiginn
*
Maol Sheachluinn na n-Uirsgéal Ó hUiginn
*
Filí
The fili (or ''filè'') (), plural filid, filidh (or filès), was a member of an elite class of poets in Gaelic Ireland, Ireland, and later Scotland in the Middle Ages, Scotland, up until the English Renaissance, Renaissance. The filid were b ...
, the hereditary elite bardic poets of Gaelic Ireland
*
Irish bardic poetry
Notes
References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:O Huiginn, Tadg Og
Writers from County Mayo
Writers from County Galway
Irish religious writers
15th-century Irish poets
1448 deaths
Irish male poets
Irish-language writers