Daniel Corkery refers to ‘Irish’ Ireland in the eighteenth century, that is the country outside of Dublin and the larger towns, as the “hidden Ireland” in his book of the same title. He refers to it as that “dreadful century during which our forefathers were tested as never before. He agrees with Dr. Sigerson, who wrote: “For a time Anti-Christ ruled in Ireland. Cromwellian cruelty looks mild, and the pagan persecution of the early Christians almost human when compared with the Penal Laws. He mentions how the O’Connells of Derrynane, co. Kerry, wished to avoid mention in Dr. Smith’s account of that county. “The O’Connell’s were Catholic landlords, of which there were few. They did not seek a place in the sun; far less did the cabin-dwellers. A rush-light, enough to eat, and to be left alone, were all they sought. Their fathers themselves had suffered so much from the authorities and their laws, that an overlooked existence for them was a blessing.” Their art consisted of literature and music only, arts that required little or no equipment. Contemporaries like Arthur Young and Maria Edgeworth, and later writers like Carleton and Lecky, leave us with an impression of a land of extraordinary slatternliness. Corkery uses the word slatternliness ten times on one page to describe the condition of the country. The slatternliness applied both to the Big House and to the cabin. “The slatternliness of the Big House was barbaric; there was wealth without refinement and power without responsibility. The slatternliness of the cabin was unredeemed unless one looks into the soul of things.” Corkery looked into the soul of things, the hidden pulse of life covered by degradation, hardship, starvation and tyranny. He states that the country was speckled with ruins – broken abbeys, roofless churches, battered castles, burnt houses, deserted villages. That was the face of ‘Irish’ Ireland – that hidden land whose story has never been told. Poverty was its only attire – poverty in the town, the cabin, the person, their possessions, its landscape. As Swift observed, “the Irish had become hewers of wood and drawers of water for their oppressors”. Corkery wrote, “being a peasant nation, the cabins, as might be expected, were the custodians of its mind.” So it is to the cabins and its inhabitants that we must go to attempt to discover what was happening to the soul of the country in the 18th century.
Unlike their predecessors, the poets were peasants – labourers or wandering schoolmasters. But, as Corkery observes, they never thought of themselves as peasants; they thought of themselves as poets. They were the sons of learning, carrying on the tradition of the great bardic schools and the later Courts of Poetry. They knew that they were the inheritors of a thousand years of organised bardic poetry. The Cromwellian was not a poet. Poetry he could not understand, nor even the need for it. He was not fit to be named in one breath with the Gael, on whom he trampled. The Gaels were “children of kings, sons of Melesius” and they knew it. The poems of the great writers Aodhagán Ó Rathaille and Eoghan Rua O’Suilleabháin, almost two hundred years after their creation, were found alive in the mouths of farmers and fishermen. The poems of Séan Ó Coileáin were still remembered a century and a half later by old people in Carbery – at least by one – Tadhg Ó Muirthile (1850-1940) of Kilfadeen, Leap.
In one of Eoghan Rua O’Suilleabháin’s poems, the spirit of Ireland recalls her great past when her lot was chieftainship and feasting ‘le seascaireach ceoil’ (with the comfort of music). The comfort of music – the one phrase to denote the excelling charm in his own verse, the exact phrase to describe what it was he gave his down-trodden and hungry people, endearing himself to them despite his wild ways. A reckless genius, the words that flew from his lips were pure music. No wonder he soon became known as ‘Eoghan an Bhéil Bhinn (Eoghan of the sweet mouth).
Séan Ó Coileáin, or Seán Máistir (Master John) as he was called by his contemporaries, had much in common with Eoghan Rua. They were contemporaries but almost certainly never met; they were both reckless and daring, fond of drink and women, but they were loved “for their wit, for the music that flowed from their mouths”. O’Coileáin ‘the Silver Tongue of Munster and Eoghan Run of the ‘Sweet Mouth’. The music of words – that’s what both gave their listeners – the sweet music of words that uplifted burdened minds and hearts, if only for a short while.
Little is known of O’Coileáin’s life or work from his own writing or from that of his contemporaries. However, his poems, stories and anecdotes about his life lived on in West Carbery well into the 20th century. For instance, in 1938, when the National School Folklore was being collected, Tadhg Ó Muirthile of Kilfadeen, Leap, then 88, could recite many of his poems an tell stories about O’Coileáin’s life to local teachers like Séan O’Donovan of Kilmacabea NS, Leap, James McCarthy of Knockskeagh NS, Leap and Pádraig Ó Conaill, Irish teacher from Myross. He also features strongly in the folklore of the primary schools in Maulatrahane, Union Hall, Castlehaven and Rosscarbery.
The main sources for this article are (a) the folklore collected in the above schools, (b) an essay written by Peadar Ó hAnnracháin in ‘Irisleabhar na Gaeilge’ (The Gaelic Journal) (c) an essay in Scríobhaithe Chorcaí 1700-1850 by Buachalla (James Buckley), now in the National Library of Ireland and used as a source by Ó Conchúir.
Séan Ó Coileáin’s father’s people were from the area between Drimoleague and Dunmanway and his mother’s people, Muintir Anglainn (Anglin) were resident “west of Drimoleague”, probably in Caheragh parish. His father had a farm in Ballygurteen, near Killeen, where Séan was born in 1754. It appears that the family were evicted when Séan was young and that his father died soon afterwards. His mother took Séan back to her own people where she rented a house. According to Peadar Ó hAnnracháin, she also died young, and it was his mother’s family who reared him and gave him whatever education was available.
It is said that he spent some time in a seminary in Spain or France, preparing to be a priest. The only certain fact about this period of his life is found in his manuscripts, where he states that he spent four months in a seminary in Coimbra, Portugal.
He never completed his training for the priesthood and, after returning from the Continent, he headed south toward the sea and settled in the parish of Myross, “garraí na Mumhain”, as he himself described it. According to one story in folklore, he met some people from Myross at Rosscarbery Fair and they persuaded him to establish a school in Myross. He rented a little house here and set up a school in ‘aice le Séipéal an Stúicín ar bharr na Ceapaí (near Stookeen Church at the height of Cappagh). Cappagh is east of Rineen, overlooking the inlet of Castlehaven harbour between Union Hall and Castletownsend. The ruins of Stuicín church are still to be seen. West of the church on the wooded slope called the Lackareagh (Leaca Riabhach, the grey or striped slope) he had his school. There is a cliff here called ‘Faill an fhiáin dris (the cliff of the wild briar), near the top of which is ‘Leaba Sheáin Uí Choileáin’ (the bed of Seán Ó Coileáin). Here he used to meditate and compose poems as he tells us himself.
‘Is socair, is sámh, is sásta chodlas aréir / I leaba glan árd faoi scáth agus fothain na gcraobh, / Crann crithir agus déil agus craobh glas den chuileann mar dhíon / Agus duilliúir na gcraobh mar éadach leaapan fém cheann.’
(It’s comfortable, cosy and satisfied I slept last night / In a clean high bed beneath the shade and shelter of the branches, / Aspen and deal and green-branched holly my roof / And the trees’ foliage as a pillow under my head).
To be continued….
