Seán Ó Neachtain

Seán Ó Neachtain (1640/50-1728)

One of the most illustrious sons of Drum was a man born in Clonellan (Cluain Oileáin) in 1640/50, the poet Seán Ó Neachtain, one of the major literary figures of his day. As a young man he migrated to Leinster where he worked as a "spailpín" (i.e. an itinerant labourere). While there he married the daughter of his employer, a girl named Winifred Nangle, but it is not known whether or not he returned to Roscommon at this time. On the death of his wife he married a woman named Una Ne Bhrian by whom he had three children, Tadhg, Lucas and Anna. He settled eventually in Meath where he was employed as a schoolmaster. Edward O'Reilly in his catalogue of Irish authors tells us that Seán Ó Neachtain was living in Meath in 1715 and that he was an aged man at this time. The evidence that Ó Neachtain was a Roscommon man comes from two sources; the evidence of his son Tadhg and that of Brian O'Fearrgall, another Roscommon author. Seán Ó Neachtain wrote exclusively in prose in addition to poetry and was by all accounts an extremely learned man with a deep knowledge of nature that is amply illustrated in his poetry. Douglas Hyde, a fellow poet and Roscommon man has this to say of his poetry:

"One of the earliest writers of Jacobite poetry, and perhaps the most voluminous man letters of his time amongst the native Irish was Seán Ó Neachtain"...

Douglas Hyde described Ó Neachtain's elegy on Mary D'Este widow of James II as one of the "most musical pieces I have ever seen, even in Irish". An example is given below:

Sources: Mil na hEigse, Risteard O'Foghludha (1945); Roscommon Authors, Helen Maher (1978).

The above article was written by Mícheál Macken for 'Drum - Past and Present', a booklet presented by Annette Durney in aid of Drum Community Centre in 1985. The following poem and translation was also published in the same booklet.