Peadar Ó Doirnín, Gaelic-Irish poet, c. 1700-69.
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Ó Doirnín is one of the most celebrated of the Ulster poets in the eighteenth century and along with Art Mac Cumhaigh, Cathal Buí Mac Giolla Ghunna and Séamas Dall Mac Cuarta was part of the Airgíalla tradition of poetry and song. They were the northern representatives of the Hidden Ireland of poets and learned scholars whose existence in eighteenth century Munster Daniel Corkery famously wrote about in his 1924 classic.
Ó Doirnín's work is still alive in the tradition of north Leinster and south Ulster, while his authorship of nationally and internationally celebrated songs like Mná na hÉireann is little known. Other songs such as Úrchnoc Chéin mhic Cáinte make classic Gaelic appeals for a return to nature reminiscent of its contemporary Lon Doire an Chairn (a poem which attained new renown in the twentieth century under the title Blackbird of Derrycairn by Austin Clarke). For the sexual inferences of Úrchnoc Chéin mhic Cáinte, Ó Doirnín, the Hedgeschool master, is reputed to have been dismissed from his teaching job.[1]