Life
?1570-?1630 [Eoghan Ruadh mac Uilliam Óig]; b. Co. Donegal, son of hereditary ollamh to the Ó Domhnaills; author of ‘Rob soruidh t’eachtra, a Aodh Ruaidh’, beseeching protection for Red Hugh O’Donnell on his journey to Spain, 1602; after Red Hugh’s in Simancas, supposedly from poison in 1603, he expressed fears for Rudhraighe, his brother, in ‘Dána an turas trialltar sonn’; addressed ‘Rob soraidh an séadsa soir’ to Toirdhealbhach Ó Néill on his journey to the London to press claims of Hugh O’Neill to his father’s territory in Tyrone; left Ireland with Rudhraighe, 1607;
heard of Rudhraighe’s illness in Rome while he was neglected at Flanders, 1608, and wrote ‘Truagh do chor a chroidhe tim’ expressing heartfelt sorrow; wrote ‘A bhean fuair faill ar an bhfeart’ Nualaidh, at death of Rudhraighe and Cathbharr; providing the basis for Mangan’s ‘O Woman of the Piercing Wail’; became Hugh O’Neill’s confidant in Rome; received pension from Philip III of Spain; dedicates translation of a military handbook to Aodh O’Donnell (ed. Louvain), 1626; wrote poems of encouragement for Nualaidh’s estranged husband Niall Garbh Ó Domhnaill and his son Neachtain, prisoners in the Tower of London (though Niall previously opposed Rudhraidghe; composed much religious verse; his life unrecorded after 1626. [DIW]
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Criticism
Tomás Ó Raghallaigh, ed., Duanta Eoghain Ruaidh Mhic an Bhaird (1930); Lambert MacKenna, ed., Dioghluim Dána (1938); Paul Walsh, Irish Men of Learning (1947); and Michelle Ó Riordan, The Gaelic Mind and the Collapse of the Gaelic World (1990).
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