Review of Dúchas, the Duhallow Historical Journal, Volume III

On Domhnall Garbh and Máire Bhuí

I have reviewed the two previous annual issues of Dúchas, the Duhallow History Journal, for Irish Political Review, and the recently-published third issue is no less worthy of notice. Local history is one of the strengths of Irish culture. Pretty well all over Ireland, there are people exploring the local past, finding out interesting things about local persons and places from across the decades, the centuries, the millennia. And establishing what they don’t know, though they would like to. Not every country has this kind of local history, with anything like the same vigour.

            Once again, Dúchas has a spread of articles on varied themes. Eamonn Duggan traces the later career of Seán Moylan, as a Fianna Fáil TD and minister in several governments. He was a tremendous worker and made an impression even in fields where he had no background, education being one example. His last ministry was agriculture in 1957, an area where he did have a lifelong interest. Moylan proceeded to go up and down the country, trying to motivate farmers to face the hyper-competitive world of postwar capitalism. De Valera worried that he might kill himself with overwork, and it is not entirely clear that this did not actually happen.

            “The Crown and the Cronins: landlords and middlemen in eighteenth century Duhallow”, by John Regan, looks from another angle at a period and a territory that the author has described previously. His account comes forward into the nineteenth century and touches on the remarkable Rockite rebellion of 1820-4, which “was fanned by the prophecies of Pastorini, foretelling the impending destruction of Protestantism. It amounted to a large-scale insurrection of up to 2,000 rebels threatening the towns of Newmarket, Mallow and Macroom which was repulsed only after prolonged fighting. Casualties were in the hundreds and over a hundred rebels were executed. It was not until 1824 that the rebellion finally petered out.”

            Killaclug is a townland in the County Cork, parish of Clondrohid, barony of Muskerry West, just north of the Macroom-Killarney road, maybe 10 kilometres or so from Macroom. The name would indicate that there was a cill (church) with a clog (bell), but no trace of either has been found; Paul MacCotter notes, however, that archaeologists have discovered a bell-making workshop of the sixth or seventh century near Mitchelstown, and they may find something in Killaclug when they do more digging. MacCotter proposes to deal with the townland’s “history… its geographical context, and its onomastic and tenurial history”. Substantially, the history given goes with the tenures: who owned or controlled, or probably controlled, that area at any given time, from pre-1170, when the Muskerry O’Flynns were the overlords, to post-1903, when the Wyndham Land Act made the landed estates available for purchase by their tenants. Whether Killaclug was otherwise touched by modern political history (whether, for example, it had any Rockite influences), we are not told.

Lament for Domhnall Ó Caoimh

For me, the most interesting contents of the issue are three articles written in Irish. One of them, by Pádraig Ó Súilleabháin, provides an edition of a lament for a much-travelled soldier and Gaelic lord. Domhnall Ó Caoimh, who died unexpectedly in his bed in Duhallow on November 22, 1669 (“I thought it would have been on a battlefield,” his elegist says in verse 28), may still have been a relatively young man (“he departed young”; “he had not completed his growing”, vv. 30, 62). Yet we are told that he had been involved in battle with the three outstanding French military commanders of his time; he had done business with English royals and very much impressed them (soldiering for James Duke of York and negotiating successfully with King Charles II); and he also lived to the full the life of a Gaelic lord, loved by all classes, and supporting poets and a whole range of artists, even including those colourful professional gamblers who were known as cearrbhaigh.

            The poet who composed this long lament, Domhnall Garbh Ó Súilleabháin, was a master of the Irish language. But although his elegy was appreciated and many people took the trouble to record it in manuscript and some of these manuscripts still survive, it is not so easy to extract the poem from the manuscripts in comprehensible form. I have tried this kind of thing myself, so I know that Pádraig Ó Súilleabháin has done an excellent job. If some difficulties remain, that is to be expected. On occasion I might prefer one of the alternative readings that he mentions, or I understand things a bit differently, but he has done all the groundwork. 

            There is no doubt in my mind that Domhnall Garbh had done strenuous training in one of the schools for professional poets (possibly during the 1640s, when a lot of those schools, which had been dormant for decades, sprang up again). The way he sets the scene in his elegy is revealing. First there are five verses describing a mysterious crisis and failure in Nature; then several more verses explaining that this is due to the loss of a mighty hand, a most resourceful head; and the name of the deceased is mentioned only in verse 13. This is how an elegy composed in the top professionals’ very intricate syllabic metres would typically open. However, Domhnall Garbh wants to move with the times, and he opts instead for the simpler and more dramatic metre called caoineadh, which at that time had come into vogue. For anyone with a good knowledge of modern Irish but without a professional training in recitation, this makes the verses a lot more utterable. Pádraig Ó Súilleabháin, who urges his readers to read the poem aloud, is still asking a lot, but he’s not asking the impossible. 

            Ó Caoimh had mastered the Irish athletic and martial arts: wrestling, horse-riding, swimming, boat-racing, javelin throwing, fencing, “throwing the round stones” (caitheamh na gcórrleac: something like the stone put still practiced in the Highland Games, where a fairly heavy stone is thrown for distance), and so on, though I cannot find any mention of hurling (vv. 17-19). As a boy, however, he had gone to Europe to learn the more advanced arts of war, since a Gaelic Catholic noble had little hope of learning them at home. It appears that he also picked up some broader gentlemanly culture. He was familiar, we are told, with philosophy, classical poetry, and law (v. 20). He was conventionally Catholic, as is the poet, but only an occasional line or two make this clear; there is no indication that Ó Caoimh was particularly pious. But he did acknowledge his duty to support the clergy:

Saoigh na n-easbag ‘sa gcaibidil cóirneach,

díon do shagartaibh, tearmann d’ordaibh.

Sees for the bishops and their tonsured chapters,

protection for priests and refuge for monks.   (v. 42)

Ó Caoimh was also patriotic. The elegist gives us an anecdote from his time in Flanders: he once beat up a Scotsman who insulted Ireland.                    

Armstrong sé b’ainm dó i mórtas,

ní nár anachail anam dó ar t’fhórsa.

Armstrong was his boastful surname,

but that didn’t save his life from your violence!     (v. 33)

The poet leaves it to up his hearers whether or not they catch the simple wordplay in the Scotsman’s surname. Actually, there are quite a few English words scattered through the poem, some though not all of which Pádraig Ó Súilleabháin has highlighted. One such rather surprised me: addressing the deceased lord, the poet says that many people had been following his career and a bhfaicsint do phrógras, “watching your progress” (v. 30).

Ó Caoimh in the Wars of Europe and Ireland

Domhnall Garbh says many things concisely to his audience. For a 21st century reader, often he is speaking cryptically. An example is the two verses where he gives a condensed version of Ó Caoimh’s military experience in Europe. Pádraig Ó Súilleabháin has suggested, as a possible explanation of this passage, that Ó Caoimh took part in the Battle of Valenciennes (1656). I believe this is correct, but a bit more detail may be of interest. The verses are as follows:

Níorbh ionngna gníomh curanta chór leis,

fuair ’na leanbhaíocht taithí leor air;

Archduke ba tutor ar dtós dó,

do chuir prionnsa Conda comhartha air.

I gcampa Rí Franc chun treora

thug Tuiréin ar stéideach scóp dó;

ag La Feairthé i ngleic níorbh fhónda;

thug Duke of York dó post mórchionn.

No wonder his brave deeds made a chorus:

in his childhood he got plenty of that practice;

an Archduke was his tutor at first;

the Prince Condé took notice of him.

Turenne, in the king of France’s camp,

on a fine horse directing, gave him glory;

when La Ferté fought him, he was not found wanting;

the Duke of York gave him an important post.     (vv. 22-3)

Even someone who was familiar with the European wars of the 1640s and 50s might look at this and blink, and ask: “Which side was he on?” Let’s begin with the Archduke, who suggests Austria. Ó Caoimh, while still in his early teenage years, might have been sent to Austria to learn soldiering. The Archduke in question could possibly have been Ferdinand, soon to be Holy Roman Emperor. Archduke Ferdinand took over command of the Austrian armies after the murder of the great general Wallenstein early in 1634 (prominent among whose murderers was the Irish adventurer Walter Butler). In 1634-5 Ferdinand was very active in battle against the Swedes. Young Ó Caoimh may have been attached to one of his units.

            But certainly, whenever his Austrian stay may have been, he would have been back in Duhallow at the latest by 1641-2, when the great Irish uprising erupted. He had succeeded his father by then, and “Daniel O’Keeffe, papist” is named in the Books of Survey and Distribution as being in possession of Dromagh, Dromtariffe, and many other lands in Duhallow in 1641. There is evidence that he was involved in the Confederate War in 1645, and we can be fairly sure that he held on, like other South Munster noblemen, until the Cromwellian conquest was complete. The Cromwellians captured Dromagh Castle in 1652 (some people say it was then held by Domhnall’s brother, but these things are unclear). Anyhow, at that point, and especially after the general Irish capitulation signed by Lord Muskerry in that same year, a man like Domhnall Ó Caoimh would have had no choice whatever but to head for Europe once more.

            Ó Caoimh’s acquaintance with Prince Condé must therefore date from the 1650s. Condé’s career began in the 1640s when he achieved lightning fame as a 21-year-old French war hero, an outstandingly successful young general. Unfortunately, he was too successful for his own good: he caused jealousy at the French royal court and was imprisoned and threatened with death. When eventually released, he rose in rebellion. Shortly afterwards he defected to Spain, France’s principal enemy, and became a top Spanish commander.

            Turenne and La Ferté were marshals of France, the former being one of the greatest French generals ever. In 1656 these two undertook a siege of the town of Valenciennes in the Spanish Netherlands. The town was ably defended, and in due course a large Spanish force came to help the defenders and hopefully break the siege. Condé, who was in the Spanish service, was one of the two commanders of this relieving army; among his men there were Irish infantry units. The siege-breakers won a tremendous victory, and Turenne suffered one of his very few defeats.

            We can therefore draw the following conclusions, clarifying the poem: 

1, Ó Caoimh was one of Condé’s infantry officers at the Battle of Valenciennes; 2, the two lines about Turenne are meant humorously, in a sardonic vein — the Marshal most certainly had not intended to give Ó Caoimh a share in any glory whatever; and 3, Ó Caoimh and his men were probably involved in the fighting with La Ferté, who was the battle’s main casualty: his army was destroyed and he himself was taken prisoner.

            And the Duke of York (James, brother of exiled King Charles II)? He too comes into the story, via a further political twist. James in exile had served in the French Army under Turenne and had risen to the rank of Lieutenant-General. However, in 1657 Mazarin’s government took the pragmatic step of signing a treaty with Cromwellian England. Charles II responded angrily and unpragmatically by signing a treaty with France’s main enemy, Spain. The upshot of this was that his brother was told he would have to leave the territory of France. James, it appears, was furious with Charles, but not having many other options, he decided to follow the lead of Condé and go over to Spain. In fact, he ended up joining the Spanish forces in Flanders that Condé commanded. And there, of course, Ó Caoimh could have met him.

            Domhnall Garbh Ó Súilleabháin maintains that the deceased lord of Duhallow will be mourned by English girls from Mallow to Portsmouth; queens in the Netherlands will weep for him; and there will be tears also in Paris (v. 31). This last assertion might seem to be an absurdity: what, the countrywomen of Turenne and La Ferté will mourn their enemy Ó Caoimh?! In fact, however, even when he was in the Spanish service, Prince Condé always had his own party in Paris: friends and admirers who thought he had been despicably treated. And when France made peace with Spain at the end of the 1650s, the erring Prince too made his peace with the French king and was pardoned. By the time of Ó Caoimh’s death (1669), Condé had even received another French military command (1668). Hence the poet’s words are not simply ridiculous.

            Ó Caoimh, of course, did not fight only in Europe. He also played his part in the Irish war of the 1640s. The following verse recalls some of his engagements:

Buíon dár n-airm cois Galislionn san Eochaill,

ag Cluain Meala is ag daingean Lios Móire;

laoich dá leagadh acu is creacha dá gcnósach,

bruíne ar lasadh is na h-arbhair dóite.

A troop of our army by Galislionn in Youghal,

at Clonmel and at Lismore Castle,

felling warriors and plundering their stores,

the mansions ablaze and the cornfields burnt.   (v. 44) 

What this seems to refer to is the campaign by the Munster Confederate Army, led by the Earl of Castlehaven, in 1645. Castlehaven was attempting to clear South Munster of positions held by the Parliamentarian (Cromwellian) forces led by Baron Inchiquin. The plan was to capture the smaller strongholds first and afterwards take Cork and Youghal. As explained in his memoirs, Castlehaven made Clonmel his headquarters, and his army set out from there in April 1645. Many castles were taken, including Lismore. An attempt to take Youghal, however, ended in failure.

            Ó Caoimh “had the command of a company of Foot in the Irish army”, according to the genealogist John O’Hart, cited by Pádraig Ó Súilleabháin. Evidently, he and his men took part in Castlehaven’s campaign in 1645. There may well be more references to his activities in the huge mass of documents surviving from the Confederate War.

Lands and Lifestyles

            In 1660 the Cromwellian Protectorate collapsed and the Duke of York’s brother ascended the throne of England. So one naturally asks: did Ó Caoimh regain his lost lands, which the Cromwellians had seized? It is notorious that most of the dispossessed Irish Catholic lords did not, in fact, recover their lands under the Act of Settlement of 1662. A very few of them not only got back what they had lost but gained a lot more, the prime example being Donough MacCarthy, formerly Viscount Muskerry and now Earl of Clancarty.

            MacCarthy, in turn, was able to see to it that some of his close friends and supporters recovered their losses. Domhnall Ó Caoimh in Duhallow had certainly been within the Viscount/Earl’s sphere of influence, but one doesn’t know what relations these two men had. In the late stages of the Irish war, MacCarthy’s close supporters gathered in Ross Castle in Kerry and addressed a spirited letter to the Confederates of Leinster; Ó Caoimh’s name is not among the signatories. However, this may not mean very much. Perhaps Donough MacCarthy did something for Ó Caoimh? Or maybe Ó Caoimh was able to do something for himself?

Thug Rí Sacsan dó maide is sróilscairf,

thug sé maitheamh dhó i gceannas a chógais;

thug i bpatent dhó dearbh gan dócheist,

mar is measartha labharthar Homage.

The King of England gave him a cane and a silk scarf;

he gave him pardon at the head of his kinfolk;

he gave him unqualified confirmation in patent,

(the status) that is appropriately called Homage.    (v. 24)

            Pardon comes into it because the Irish Catholic Confederates who had fought so doggedly against the King’s Parliamentarian enemies were still officially regarded as rebels — the text of the Act of Settlement made this clear. However, once that is got out of the way, Ó Caoimh appears to be very much in royal favour: acknowledged in the respectful and respected relationship of homage. But what did that patent really amount to? Did he recover his lands? 

            The answer, I believe, can be found in one of the later verses, which unfortunately is a bit garbled when it reaches us:

Cuiras san chunchas ba tóisge,

fuair le calmacht acfuinne ’s beodhacht;

fa nadh thata chun seasaimh a chóra,

dul go halla Rí Sacsan gan frógairt.       (v. 60)

Now, guessing that the first words cuiras san might be cuid as an, “a part from”, and that thata in the third line might be meata, “cowardly, timid”, I can hazard the following translation:

Out of the earlier conquest

he got (back) part by courage, ability and energy;

he was not too timid to stand up for his rights,

to go without summons to the King of England’s hall.

The “earlier conquest” means the Cromwellian conquest, to be contrasted with the current state of things under the Act of Settlement. Ó Caoimh, then, boldly went and sought audience with the English king, and he won concessions, though not his entire patrimony. Anyhow, this is how I interpret the verse, and it seems to correspond with the officially documented tenures. The section of the Books of Survey and Distribution relating to Duhallow is now available on the internet (ref. NAI QRO 1/1/3/6/15/4). I have not studied this in depth, but at a cursory glance it seems to show that Daniel O’Keeffe recovered Dromagh, Dromtariffe, and some few more of the lands lost earlier by “Daniel O’Keeffe, papist”; however, what he recovered may have been less than a quarter and was certainly less than half.

            The poem, at any rate, makes one thing clear: Ó Caoimh had to do things for himself. (I don’t think it’s treason for me to say so, Domhnall Garbh adds darkly, v. 61.) Which would imply that Donough MacCarthy did nothing for him. And that may explain one of the strangest things about this poem: when the poet gets down to describing Ó Caoimh’s family connections, he does not mention a single Gaelic kindred! I could mention them, he says, but… well, it is proven fact that of Ireland’s noble families who are either in Heaven or alive, you have kinship bonds sufficiently with all! (v. 53). For this reason, apparently, there is no need to mention any Gaelic names. (And if such names were to be mentioned, the first in order must surely be MacCarthy.)

            Instead, Domhnall Garbh exerts himself to list Ó Caoimh’s connections with the leading families of English-Norman extraction. And in the five verses (55-59) where he parades the FitzGeralds, Butlers, Burkes, Nugents, Barrys, Roches, Prestons and FitzMaurices, every name he pronounces in his musical lines sounds like a blow struck at the name that must never be mentioned: MacCarthy.

            The poem moves restlessly between themes and times, and doubtless it somewhat obscures the difficulties of Ó Caoimh’s life after the Restoration. Official documents hint at that other side: for example, in January 1664 “Captain Daniel O’Keeffe” was in dispute with a certain Charles MacCarthy of Cork City over lands in Duhallow at the Court of Claims (Geraldine Tallon ed., Court of Claims, Submissions and Evidence 1663, p. 436). But Domhnall Garbh leaves all such tedious things aside. He identifies the deceased man fully with the traditional Gaelic lordly life and describes its vivid facets. Hunting (v. 51), lavish feasting, wine and women (vv. 45-6), storytellers clearing a space for themselves and telling tales of Fionn and the Fianna (v. 47), many kinds of dances, some with changes of music (v. 48), girls doing beautiful and elaborate embroidery (v. 49). And as mentioned earlier, the obsessive people who showed another kind of human possibility and had some sort of protection as performance artists:

Buidhne cearrbhach mbeartuighthe mórfhoclach

mhaoidhios cailliomhaint seallad is fhógras

go mbíonn airgiod acu is nach cór stad

bhíos ar maidin gan faic iompa ach sóirse.

Bands of determined big-talking gamblers

who insist they’re just temporary losers, declaring

that they have money and it’s not right to stop,

and next morning they’re wearing nothing but a belt.  (v. 50)

Thus far, I have not said much about the poem as a literary performance. It is actually an amazing work of crafted sound. Here, for those who can do it, Pádraig Ó Súilleabháin’s recommendation is helpful: to read the poem aloud. I have taken up his challenge — more than once, in fact, as my first attempt wasn’t good. What one finds is that the poet, in a natural and fluent way, tends to match his language to the theme or the mood of whatever is being spoken about. (Consider the first two lines in the verse above, about big-talking or big-worded gamblers.)

            The basic rules of the metre, however, are simple. Essentially there are two.

• The second-last syllable in every line is stressed, and it always has the same long vowel sound, in this case a long ó. This is the end-rhyme.
• In a typical line, which has four stresses, the second and third stressed syllables make a vowel rhyme. (Some lines, however, only have three stresses, and then it’s the first and second that rhyme.) The rhyming vowel may be long or short, and unlike the end-rhyme, it varies from line to line.

            I will show these vowel rhymes in bold and bold italic type in the following two verses. They are taken from the opening passage, where the poet develops the traditional theme of Nature mourning the deceased person.

Tá an t-aer gan éanlaith cheolmhar,

tá an t-uisce gan oiread an óspairt,

tá an tine gan fuinneamh ná smóilteas,

tá an talamh gan tartha ná tórromh.

Tá an ghrian i mbliadhna fá neolaibh,

ní fhreagrann an ré an t-éasga i gcoimhcheart,

tá an maraí gan tathaí ár gcógair,

fáth nach léir dó an raolatinn eolais.

Air is without the music of birds,

Water isn’t enough to drown in,

Fire has no power or smoulder-heat,

Earth is without fruit or harvest.

This year the sun is under clouds,

the new moon fits the old moon badly,

the sailor does not frequent our parts

because he cannot make out the Pole Star.    (vv. 2-3)

A Word About Máire Bhuí

I must leave it to another issue to discuss the two other articles that concerned me, by Aogán Ó hIarlaithe and Seán Ua Súilleabháin. Ó hIarlaithe is concerned with aspects of the poetic, or partly poetic performance called caoineadh (keening). Ua Súilleabháin writes about classical learning in the poetry of Máire Bhuí Ní Laoghaire, who was the leading poet of Muskerry at the very end of the 18th century and well into the 19th.

            Domhnall Garbh Ó Súilleabháin, who came about a century and a half before Máire Bhuí, is rather sparing of his classical allusions, though he does throw in references to Homer and Thebes in passing. Máire Bhuí, by contrast, brings in Cupid and Helen and Hector and Achilles, Venus and Orpheus and Jason, and more… And yet Máire Bhuí is regarded as the Popular poet with a capital P, not a learned poet like Domhnall Garbh. So what is she doing with all of this classical mythology, Seán Ua Súilleabháin asks, and where could she have picked it up? One might have expected a simple soul like her not to bother with such things.

            Máire Bhuí Ní Laoghaire is of all Irish poets the most patronised, the most one-dimensionally and condescendingly categorised by those who profess to be her admirers. Invariably, to start with, she is described as illiterate. I have only noticed one commentator (Meidhbhín Ní Úrdail in Eighteenth Century Ireland, 2002) who did at least raise some mildly-expressed doubts and make qualifications, though without rejecting the consensus. This consensus view, however, is ludicrous. In fact, if it is believed that the concept of illiteracy can be meaningfully applied to a poet like Máire Bhuí, that raises a few questions about the literacy of the critics.

            I do not deny the popular aspect of her poetry. I acknowledge her as the outstanding Rockite poet. I am passably acquainted with Cath Chéim an Fhia, her celebration of the bold Rockite attempt to release prisoners being transported by soldiers at Keimaneigh in 1822. The sizzling verse about pikes and bullets in her late dialogue poem, beginning A Mháire Ní Laoghaire, should be mentioned also. If you want to say Les aristocrates à la lanterne in Irish, doubtless Máire Bhuí’s poetry should be your first port of call. It would be one thing if her admirers presented her as a revolutionary sansculotte, or (since she did spend most of her life on a 150-acre farm) an ideologist of sansculottism. But no, they prefer to present her as “a farmer’s wife”, “bean feirmeora” (Vincent Morley in The Popular Mind in Eighteenth Century Ireland, and now Seán Ua Súilleabháin). Really and truly, as if her poetry were a kind of sociological expression of her socio-economic category! As if farmers’ wives composed poetry like this all the time!

            Actually, what worries Ua Súilleabháin is that in some of her poems, and one in particular, Máire Bhuí seems to be getting out of her sociological strait-jacket. Cad fé ndear do bhean pósta, do bhean feirmeora in iarthar Muscraí, amhrán den tsórd seo a chumadh? (“What makes a married woman, a farmer’s wife in West Muskerry, compose a song like this?”). It’s an excellent question, which any one of her songs might well inspire. Unfortunately, it seems to me, Ua Súilleabháin is concerned only to stop the question disturbing the critical consensus. He tidies the problem away by suggesting that she got her classical knowledge from the air — which is to say, from songs by other poets.

            There’s something else peculiar about the song he focuses on, Na Bearta Crua, something he doesn’t mention. That song is also attributed to none other than Eoghan Ruadh Ó Súilleabháin! (It will be found in Pat Muldowney’s edition of the Dánta.) All three of Máire Bhuí’s editors (Ó Donnchú, Brennan, Ní Shíocháin), however, claim it for their poet. If Máire Bhuí is so skilled that there could be some doubt whether a particular poem is hers or Eoghan Ruadh’s, that surely ought to make some of the strait-jacketing critics stop and think. But more about this later.

JOHN MINAHANE