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

Jacobite Jacobite means follower of Jacob or James. Jacobite may refer to: Religion * Jacobites, followers of Saint Jacob Baradaeus (died 578). Churches in the Jacobite tradition and sometimes called Jacobite include: ** Syriac Orthodox Church, sometimes ...

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 actio ...

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 gath ...

, and composer of poetry in both Munster Irish and in the Irish language outside Ireland.

Life

He was born into the Irish clan

Mac Conmara Mac Conmara (anglicised as MacNamara or McNamara) is an Irish surname of a family of County Clare in Ireland. The McNamara family were an Irish clan claiming descent from the Dál gCais and, after the O'Briens, one of the most powerful families ...

at Cratloe ( 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 118,817 ...

(). 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 and then spent several years wandering in Catholic Europe. 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 district between the Comeraghs ( ga, Na Comaraigh) and Knockmealdown Mountains ( ga, Sléibhte Chnoc Mhaoldomhnaigh) of

County Waterford County Waterford ( ga, Contae Phort Láirge) is a county in Ireland. It is in the province of Munster and is part of the South-East Region. It is named after the city of Waterford. Waterford City and County Council is the local authority for ...

, where he remains a well-known

in local

. Around 1741, he was appointed assistant master of the illegal Catholic hedge school at Seskinane, near

Touraneena Tooraneena or Touraneena () is a village in west County Waterford, Ireland. It lies in the Sliabh gCua district between the Comeraghs and Knockmealdown Mountains. It may be accessed from the main R672 road between Clonmel and Dungarvan. It is a ...

( ga, Tuar an Fhíona),

. He is said locally to have been a highly talented at

Gaelic games Gaelic games ( ga, Cluichí Gaelacha) are a set of sports played worldwide, though they are particularly popular in Ireland, where they originated. They include Gaelic football, hurling, Gaelic handball and rounders. Football and hurling, th ...

and to have once led his students to victory upon the pitch against a rival

hurling Hurling ( ga, iománaíocht, ') is an outdoor team game of ancient Gaelic Irish origin, played by men. One of Ireland's native Gaelic games, it shares a number of features with Gaelic football, such as the field and goals, the number of pla ...

team from a neighbouring district. He is said to have sailed for

Newfoundland Newfoundland and Labrador (; french: Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador; frequently abbreviated as NL) is the easternmost province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic region. The province comprises the island of Newfoundland and the continental region ...

( ga, Talamh an Éisc) around

1743 Events January–March * January 1 – The Verendrye brothers, probably Louis-Joseph and François de La Vérendrye, become the first white people to see the Rocky Mountains from the eastern side (the Spanish conquistadors ...

. Donnchadh Ruadh was a notorious

rake Rake may refer to: * Rake (stock character), a man habituated to immoral conduct * Rake (theatre), the artificial slope of a theatre stage Science and technology * Rake receiver, a radio receiver * Rake (geology), the angle between a feature on a ...

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 poetry 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 British throne for his father, James Francis Edward Stuart. It took ...

. 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 Newfoundland and Labrador (; french: Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador; frequently abbr ...

and Munster Irish. The English lines are praise poetry 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 remain immortal works of

Modern literature in Irish Although Irish has been used as a literary language for more than 1,500 years (see Irish literature), and modern literature in Irish dates – as in most European languages – to the 16th century, modern Irish literature owes much of its popula ...

. 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 Hamburg (, ; nds, label=Hamburg German, Low Saxon, Hamborg ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (german: Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg; nds, label=Low Saxon, Friee un Hansestadt Hamborg),. is the List of cities in Germany by popul ...

. After returning to Ireland, Donnchadh Ruadh converted to

Protestantism Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...

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 second l ...

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 th ...

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

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 ...

, 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 a ...

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

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 ...

, Francis MacManus 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 ficti ...

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. Lingui ...

s discovered that multiple Donnchadh Ruadh poems in the

Irish language Irish (an Caighdeán Oifigiúil, Standard Irish: ), also known as Gaelic, is a Goidelic languages, Goidelic language of the Insular Celtic branch of the Celtic language family, which is a part of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European lang ...

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. 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