Tadhg Og Ó Cianáin

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Tadhg Og Ó Cianáin (died c.1614) was an Irish writer.

He was the author of Imeach na nIarlaí/The Earls' Departure, a diary of the Flight of the Earls, kept from September 1607 to November 1608, from Rathmullen, County Donegal to Rome. It is the earliest example in Irish of the dairy genre. Brady and Cleave made the following assesment:

"Tadhg kept a detailed account of the flight from Ulster and the journey to Rome, not on a high level of political reason and plans, but a plain man's view of what actually happened each day, what they ate and did, how they felt, what the various towns they passed thorugh were like, culminating with their arrival in Rome and the subsequent arrival there of the king of France."

The miraculous survival of Tadhg's unique manuscript-copy (MS A 21 Ó Cléirigh collection, UCD). Tadhg in his immediate pre-flight year a resident of Portnelligan, Tynan, County Armagh, listed with six other Ó Cianáins as among the follower of Henry Óg Ó Neill in a pardon list 'fiant' of December 1602 (Cú Chonnacht, Seaán mac Conchobhair, Pádraig Óg, Uaithne, Seaán mac Pádraig Mhóir). Tadhg's propery - fifteen cows, eight calves, one garron, one hackeny, twenty-five swine, all valued at £22.6s.3d - were forfeited but later returned to his wife at the intervention of the Earl of Thomond, who was a relative of hers.

Tadhg died in Rome, apparently late in 1614. He was a brother to Cu Chonnacht Ó Cianáin.

[edit] See also

[edit] Sources

  • A Biographical Dictoionary of Irish Writers, Anne M. Brady and Brian Cleeve, p.239.
  • The Learned Family of Ó Cianáin/KeenanNollaig Ó Muraíle, in Clougher Record, pp.387-436, 2005.
  • Turas na dTaoiseach nUltach as Éirinn from Ráth Maoláin to Rome: Tadhg O Cianáin’s contemporary narrative of the so-called ‘Flight of the Earls, 1607-8, Nollaig Ó Muraíle(editor), Four Courts Press, Dublin, 2007. ISBN 978-88-901692-1-2