Donnchadh Ruadh Mac Conmara

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Donnchadh Ruadh Mac Conmara (1715–1810) was an Irish poet.

A Jacobite poet, Mac Conmara was a native of Cratloe, County Clare.

According to the oral tradition, Donnchadh Ruadh left Ireland and studied abroad to become a Roman Catholic priest, but was expelled from the seminary and spent years wandering in Catholic Europe. Following his return to Ireland, the poet settled in the Sliabh gCua district between the Comeraghs and Knockmealdown Mountains of County Waterford, where he became a well-known figure.[1]

Around 1741, he was appointed assistant master of the illegal Catholic school at Seskinane, near Touraneena, County Waterford. He is said to have sailed for Newfoundland 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.[2]

After returning to Ireland, Donnchadh Ruadh converted to Protestantism and joined the Church of Ireland parish in , Newtown near Kilmacthomas. He was briefly appointed as parish clerk but when the Vicar and parishioners discovered how great a rogue he was, Donnchadh Ruadh was dismissed and converted back to Catholicism.[3]

In 1810, at the age of 95, Donnchadh Ruadh died in Newtown and lies buried in the Catholic cemetery there.[4]

Legacy[]

While still teaching at Synge Street CBS in Dublin, Francis MacManus wrote and published a trilogy of novels set in Penal times and concerning 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).[5]

For a long time, it was doubted whether Donnchadh Ruadh ever even visited Newfoundland. During the 21st century, however, linguists discovered that multiple Donnchadh Ruadh poems in the Irish language contain Gaelicized renderings of words and terms that are unique to Newfoundland English. For this reason, Donnchadh Ruadh's poems are considered the earliest solid evidence of the speaking of the Irish language in Newfoundland.[6]

See also[]


References[]

  1. ^ Donnchadh Ruadh
  2. ^ Donnchadh Ruadh
  3. ^ Donnchadh Ruadh
  4. ^ Donnchadh Ruadh
  5. ^ Oxford Companion to Irish Literature cited at http://www.answers.com/topic/francis-macmanus
  6. ^ Edited by Natasha Sumner and Aidan Doyle (2020), North American Gaels: Speech, Song, and Story in the Diaspora, Press. Pages 73-91.

Further reading[]

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