O'Rahilly — Irish Poets. Historians, &fc., in English Documents. 103 



19 May, 1601 [no. 6521]. Here we possibly have two known poets, viz. 

 Eoghan {mac Donnchadha Mlmoil) Mac Craith and Flann {mac Eoghain) 

 MacCraith} " Ballilomasine " is in Tipperary, but is now obsolete. From 

 the " Tipperary Hearth-mohey Eecords, 1665-7 " (pp. 25, 91), in which it 

 occurs as " Ballylomas{s)ny," we see that it was in the barony of Iffa and 

 Offa West. 



34. Donnchadh {an tSneacMa) Mac Craith was a man of importance in his 

 day and district. Fiant 4638, dated 8 May, 1585, begins with a "pardon to 

 Donogh Antueaghta \sic] m^Shane M'Craghe," and to " Margaret Browne, his 

 wife." An earlier Fiant, no. 3097, dated 7 Sept., 1577, similarly begins with 

 a " pardon to Donogho M'Crah, of Galbally, in Arhlo [i.e. Aherlow], 

 CO. Limerick, gentleman," who is, beyond doubt, the same nian.^ 



In 1582-3 we find him taking part in the Desmond rebellion.^ A letter 

 from Ormond to the Privy Council, dated 5 April, 1583, announces the 

 submission of " Donnoghoe M°Crahe " among other " rebels."* A letter from 

 the same on July 10, 1583, gives a list of the noblemen and gentlemen 

 who came to him at Cork and gave pledges, among the gentlemen being 

 " Donogh Mac Cragh (a rhymer)."" 



"Donnchadh an tSneachta" is mentioned as a poet in Eoghan 

 '0 Dubhthaigh's satire on Miler Magrath ; the satirist "" taxes him with 

 having composed, ca. 1579, a poem in laudation of the Countess of Ormond 

 (23 N 13, p. 192). At least one of his compositions has come down to us, 

 namely, a poem (O'Con. Don's MS , fo. 378b) in which he laments the tragic 

 deaths of James fitzMaurice (1579), John of Desmond (1582), and the Earl 



1 For the latter see foot-note, § 19, supra. The floruit of Eoghan mac Donnchadha 

 Mhaoil, who is known as the author of some religious pieces, has not yet been satis- 

 factorily determined. If an inference may be drawn from the way in which the names 

 are interchanged in some Mss., he would be identical with the Eoghan Mac Craith who, 

 besides taking part in the " Contention of the Bards," was author of Tugadh an t-dr-so 

 ar ' Eiriim (written in 1620), and of a couple of poems on the O'Briens of Clare and 

 Tipperary, one of which is dated 1658. O'Reilly is very far wrong in placing him as early 

 as 1200, and so too, I think, is Meyer ("Irish Metrics") in identifying him with the 

 fourteenth-century poet, Eoghan an t'Orthoir. 



* The persons pardoned in Fiant 4638 belong to "counties Limerick and Cork " (no 

 more precise locality is assigned to any of them), but from the fact that ten of the thirty- 

 one persons pardoned bear the Tipperary surname of Mac Craith, we might have inferred 

 that Donnchadh an tSneachta lived close to the Tipperary border, in just such a place as 

 Galbally. I may add that another Mac Craith an tSneachta appears in 1601 and 1603, 

 viz., "Wm. M-^Kraigh alias intnaghte " [no. 6495], otherwise " VVm. M^Cragh alias 

 yntuaghe (sic), tailor," of Castlegrace, near Clogheen [no. 6762]. 



3 " Donough M'Cragh and Thomas Oge M'Rory il«Cragh lie in the Decies," 22 Sept., 

 1582.— Cal. S?P., 1574-85, p. 399. 



< Ihid., p. 439. 



'" Bagwell, " Ireland under the Tudors," iii, 112, note. 



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