Ó DONNCHADHA, Tadhg. Danta Sheain Ui Mhurchadha na Raithineach.

Frontispiece. Baile Átha Cliath: Chonnradh na Gaedhilge, 1907. Crown octavo. pp. l, 229. Full maroon morocco, titled in gilt, badge of Chonnradh na Gaedhilge in gilt on upper cover. Ex libris Dalgan Park with stamps. All edges gilt. A fine copy.
Seán na Ráithíneach Ó Murchadha (1700-1762), poet and scribe from Carrignavar, Co. Cork, was a significant figure in eighteenth-century Gaelic literary culture, best remembered for his work as a manuscript copyist and collector. At least sixteen manuscripts in his hand, dating from 1719 to 1762, survive today in major Irish and British repositories. Among his most important contributions is the earliest extant copy of Parlaimint na mBan (1723), alongside the oldest copies of Agallamh na bhFíoraon and Sermons by Fr Conchubhar Mac Cairteáin. He also transcribed poetry and prose from manuscripts by Dáibhí Ó Bruadair and composed a lament for Ó Bruadair’s son in 1729.
Closely connected with the cúirt éigse of the Blarney area, Ó Murchadha maintained literary friendships with leading poets and clerics, including Seán Clárach Mac Domhnaill, Éamonn de Bhál, Liam Rua Mac Coitir, and Fr John O’Brien (later bishop of Cloyne), with whom he exchanged verse. His surviving pocket notebook (1720-45), in which he drafted newly composed songs and poems, offers a rare insight into everyday Gaelic literary life of the period. Notably apolitical, he composed only a single Jacobite poem and avoided political verse after 1745, writing instead for a limited circle of gentry, clergy, and fellow poets in his native region.

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