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Life
?1650-?1738; b. Moyglass, Co. Clare, a cousin of Aodh Buidhe Mac Cruitín, q.v.; lived as ollamh (hereditary bard) of the O’Briens but obliged to work as a teacher and an independent scribe; compiled a dozen MSS between 1703-36 which are held in the RIA, Dublin; these incls. an MS with poems on the Ó Lochlainn family compiled for Dr. Brian Ó Lochlainn in 1727; he is best known for a poem addressed to Donn of the Tuatha Dé Danann lamenting lack of patronage and poverty in old age; succeeded as ollamh by his more famous cousin. OCIL
Commentary
T. Crofton Croker, Researches in the South of Ireland (1824), Chap. V: “Fairies and Supernatural Agency” incls. a footnote: ‘In the Transactions of the Iberno-Celtic Society, a curious poem, attributed to Andrew M’Curtin, a wandering Bard who lived about the year 1740, is mentioned as still extant, in the Irish language. Conceiving that his talents were not sufficiently appreciated, he composed an Address to Donn of Duagh, or Donn of the Sand Pits, an imaginary being, supposed to preside over the fairies of a district in the county Clare, supplicating Donn to take hint his service, as he is neglected by mortals; and in praising the hospitality of the chief of the fairies, he obliquely censures the parsimony of the gentlemen of the country. It begins, - “Profound salutations to thee, oh Donn of the Sand Pits” (literally of the Kieves or Vatts).’ (p.81.) Cf. remarks in Oxford Companion to Irish Literature, ed. Robert Welch (OUP 1996), infra.
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