"Togha teaghlaigh tar gach tír
Beul átha na gcárr gclaidh-mhín
Múr is fáilteach re file
An dún dáilteach deigh-inigh."
I.e., "A choice hearth beyond every country, is the mouth of the ford of the cars [Belanagare], the smooth-ditched. A fortress welcome-giving to poet, the bestowing homestead of good generosity." The accented system had now been in vogue for nearly a century and a half, and if O'Curneen had wished to preserve an even rise and fall of accent in his verses (which he does do in his first line) he might have done so. That he did not do so, and that none of the straight-verse or classical poets attempted it, long after they had become acquainted with the other system, seems to me a strong proof that they did not intend it, and that they really possessed no system of "metrical accent" at all.
It is noticeable that O'Curneen wrote this poem in the difficult bardic dialect, so that Charles O'Conor of Belanagare, whose native language was Irish, was obliged in his copy to gloss over twenty words of it with more familiar ones of his own. These uncommon bardic terms were wholly thrown aside by the new school.
[9] His poem with its prose Irish preface is addressed to Sorley Mac Donnell, and Isabel, his wife, who was an O'Brien. They were married in 1718, and Mac Donnell died in 1743. See a collection of poems written by the Clare bards in honour of the Mac Donnells of Kilkee and Killone, in the County of Clare, collected and edited by Brian O'Looney for Major Mac Donnell, for private circulation in 1863.
[10] "Nach léir dó uaim no aisde."
[11] I have since, however, found a poem by Micheál óg O'Longain, written as late as 1800, which goes somewhat close to real Deibhidh. It begins—
"Tagraim libh a Chlann Éibhir,
Leath bhur lúith nach lán léir libh
Méala dhaoibh thar aoin eile
A dul d'éag do'n gaoidheilge."
[12] Cameron's "Reliquiæ Celticæ," vol. ii. p. 248.
[13] This is a poem by the Cork bard, Tadhg Gaolach O'Sullivan, who died in 1800. He wrote this poem in his youth, before his muse gave itself up, as it did in later days, to wholly religious subjects. In the original the rhymes are on é and ú.
"Taid Éigse 'gus Úghdair go trÚpach ag plÉireacht
So sÚgach, go sglÉipeach 's a ndrÉachta dá snígheam
Ar SpÉir-bhruinnioll mhÚinte do phlÚr-sgoth na h-Éireann
Do Úr-chriostal gAOlach a's rÉiltion na righeacht;
Ta fiÚnn-lil ag plÉireacht mar dhÚbha ar an Éclips,
Go clÚdaighthe ag PhoÉbus, le AOn-ghile gnaoi,
'Sgur'na gnÚis mhilis lÉightear do thÚirling Cupid caÉmh-ghlic
Ag mÚchadh 'sag milleadh lAOchra le trEan-neart a shaoighid."