Micheál Mac Suibhne – The Bard of the West

200 Years of Connemara History Micheál Mac Suibhne 1760-1820

File mór iarthar Chonamara ab ea Micheál Mac Suibhne a mhair ó 1760 go 1820. Tá ‘Amhrán an Phúca’ ‘Múirnín na Grúaige Báine’, ‘Bainis Pheigí Ní Eaghra’ ‘Murchadh Beag Ó Maoláin’ i measc a chuid amhráin. ‘Ní cheapfainn go raibh Raiftearaí, an lá ab fhearr a bhi sé, chomh maith leis” a dúirt Tomás O Máille faoi.

The great Connemara poet Michael Mac Sweeney celebrated in story and song – featuring Cumann Dramaíochta Chorr na Móna, singer Órla Ní Fhínneadha, poet Seán O Coistealbha. Special guests are singer Máirín Uí Chéide from Leitir Móir & Boston, and Professor Irene Whelan, herself a descendant of the Sweeney brothers.

In 1846, the Galway historian James Hardiman wrote: “In this district (Doon, Omey Island, Clifden) there lately lived a neglected poetical genius, whose name was Michael Mac Sweeney, who, though held in high repute by his countrymen, was suffered to die in poverty; but this, it is said, often occurs in half-civilized communities, where pride and ignorance are generally prevalent.”

Mac Sweeney was the ‘Bard of the West’. He composed love poems, venomous attacks on villages which did not give him due hospitality and satires which give us a native view of the troubled political and economic times the people of West Connemara endured at the turn of the 18th century.

The seanchas or oral tradition of Connemara elevated Mac Suibhne to mythic status over the generations.