Muiris mac Torna Ó Maolconaire, Irish

Irish people

The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...

 scribe

Scribe

A scribe is a person who writes books or documents by hand as a profession and helps the city keep track of its records. The profession, previously found in all literate cultures in some form, lost most of its importance and status with the advent of printing...

, historian

Historian

A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...

 and poet

Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

, died 1645.

Background

Muiris was a son of Torna Ó Maolconaire, and a native of Cluain Plocáin, County Roscommon

County Roscommon

County Roscommon is a county in Ireland. It is located in the West Region and is also part of the province of Connacht. It is named after the town of Roscommon. Roscommon County Council is the local authority for the county...

. He may have owned land in the parish of Kiltrustan. He was a member of the Ó Maolconaire

Ó Maolconaire

Ó Maolconaire was the surname of a family of professional poets and historians in Medieval Ireland. It is now rendered Mulconry, Conroy, Conaire.-Overview:...

 family, and is sometimes confused with Muirgheas mac Pháidín Ó Maolconaire

Muirgheas mac Pháidín Ó Maolconaire

Muirgheas mac Pháidín Ó Maolconaire, Gaelic-Irish scribe, died 1543.Muirgheas was a native of Cluain Plocáin , parish of Kiltrustan, County Roscommon. It lies close to an inlet of the river Shannon, north of Strokestown....

, another prominent member of Muiris mac Torna's sept

Sept

A sept is an English word for a division of a family, especially a division of a clan. The word might have its origin from Latin saeptum "enclosure, fold", or it can be an alteration of sect.The term is found in both Ireland and Scotland...

, the Sliocht Pháidín.

Annals of the Four Masters

He worked for one month, strictly as a scribe, on the compilation of the Annals of the Four Masters

Annals of the Four Masters

The Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland or the Annals of the Four Masters are a chronicle of medieval Irish history...

.

According to Bernadette Cunningham (p. 261)

Elegy

After his death in 1645, the poet Maolmhuire mac Eóghain Ó hUiginn composed Máthar na horcha an égsi (Poetry is the mother of sorrow), which emphasised his work as a poet, rather than that of a historian, genealogist or scribe. He was the only individual of the six-member team who compiled the Four Masters who was

(Cunningham, p. 262)

This is confirmed by a note written by Sir James Ware

Sir James Ware

Sir James Ware was an Irish historian.-Early life:Born at Castle Street, Dublin, Ware was the eldest son of James Ware, who arrived in Ireland in 1588 as a secretary to Lord Deputy FitzWilliam. His father was knighted by King James I, was elected M.P...

 about 1636, when he recorded that he received the vellum

Vellum

Vellum is mammal skin prepared for writing or printing on, to produce single pages, scrolls, codices or books. It is generally smooth and durable, although there are great variations depending on preparation, the quality of the skin and the type of animal used...

 fragment of annals he knew as Annales Prioratus Insulae Omnium SS in Loghree (now Bodleian

Bodleian Library

The Bodleian Library , the main research library of the University of Oxford, is one of the oldest libraries in Europe, and in Britain is second in size only to the British Library...

 MS Rawlinson

Richard Rawlinson

Richard Rawlinson FRS was an English clergyman and antiquarian collector of books and manuscripts, which he bequeathed to the Bodleian Library, Oxford.-Life:...

B 488, folios 29-34) from Muiris mac Torna in August 1627 (dono dedit Mauritius Conry 27 Augusti 1627.)

Sources

• Marbhna ar Mhuiris Mac Torna Uí Mhaoilchonaire, Réamann Ó Muireadhaigh, Eigse 15:3 (1974), pp. 295–21.
• Muirgheas Ó Maolconaire of Cluain Plocáin: an early sixteenth-century Connacht scribe at work, Bernadette Cunningham and Raymond Gillespie, Studia Hibernica 35 (2008–09), pp. 17–43.
• Muiris Ó Maolconaire, in Dictionary of Irish biography (9 vols, Cambridge, 2009)
• The Annals of the Four Masters: Irish history, kingship and society in the early seventeenth century, p. 60, 142-3, 261, 262, 275, Bernadette Cunningham, Four Courts Press, 2010. ISBN 978 1 84682 203 2.