to which she alludes again in the line—
"Nuair leumadh an tsaighead ó do mheoir."
("When the arrow would leap from your fingers.")
[5] There are some poems in the Book of Ballymote in almost the same metre as the well-known "Seaghan O'Duibhir an Ghleanna." This metre was technically called, "Ocht-foclach Corranach beag." O'Curry gives a specimen in "Manners and Customs," vol. iii. p. 393, from the Book of Ballymote which has an astonishingly modern air, and may well give pause to those who claim that Irish accentual poetry is derived from an English source.
[6] This poem, which like O'Daly's war-song, is entirely accentual and vowel-rhyming, begins thus—
"A Bhratach ar a bhfaicim-se in gruaim ag fás
Dob' annamh leat in eaglais do bhuan-choimheád,
Da mairfeadh [sin] fear-seasta na gcruadh-throdán
Feadh t'amhairc do bhiadh agat do'n tuaith 'na h-áit.
O Flag, upon whom I see the melancholy growing,
Seldom was it thy lot to constantly guard the church (shut up there);
If there lived the man-who-withstood the hard conflicts
Far-as-thy-eye-could-see thou wouldst have of the country in place of it" [i.e., the church.]
(See Catalogue of the MSS. in the British Museum.)
[7] The O'Curneens were, according to Mac Firbis's great Book of Genealogies, the hereditary poets and ollamhs of the O'Rorkes, with whom the O'Conors were closely related. The O'Conors' ollamh was O'Mulchonry.
[8] This poem begins—