Diarmuid Mac Muireadhaigh
Diarmuid Mac Muireadhaigh, Irish poet, alive late 17th century.
Biography
Mac Muireadhaigh is believed to be the composer of a twenty-three verse poem in honor of Górdún Ó Neill, Gluaisigh ribh a ghlac rannsa ... Paul Walsh (priest) notes that "Our poem would seem to have been addressed to him before the stirring times of his last years in Ireland," meaning it was written for Ó Neill sometime in the 1680s.
No other details of Mac Muireadhaigh appear to be known, although a man of his surname was killed in action at the Battle of Aughrim in 1691, and was grandfather of Séamus Mór Mac Mhurchaidh, poet and outlaw, who was executed in 1750.
Górdún Ó Neill was a son of Felim O'Neill of Kinard.
The Poem
The first four verses of the poem:
Gluaisigh ribh a ghlac rannsa
(ná fuirghe a bfad agamsa)
go hO Néill na ngruadh ngarrtha
do féin sdual gach deaghtarrtha
Abruidh uaim re a fholt tais
gur end sibh don chrann iomhais
do bhean me (sa taoibh re tuinn)
don chraoibh go ngé ^ núir náluinn
Innsigh dhósan do shúr suilt
doighre Cuind et Cormuic
go bfuil im sdórsa lámh libh
lán cóffra dona cnóaibh
Mac Sir Féidhlim flaith Eamhna
gion go labhair Gaoidhealga X.
do dhéin gáire gléghlan ruibh
ní náire dhó féin bhar bféuchuinGo, ye handful of verses —
stay not long with me —
to Néill of the fine cheeks,
to him everything good is due.
Say to his soft hair, from me,
that ye are a nut from the tree
which I plucked — its side was towards the ground —
from the branch with fresh beautiful appearance.
Tell him, to excite mirth,
Conn's and Cormac's heir,
that in my store with ye
there is a cofferful.
Sir Féidhlim's son, Emhain's prince,
though he speaks not Irish, shall bestow
on ye a clear-bright laugh, no shame for
him it is to look upon ye.