Life
1670-1749 [Teige Neaghtain, or Norton]; son of Seán [above]; b. Liberties, Dublin; schoolmaster; uhis house was a meeting place for Irish scholars; may have made journeys to England and France; sight failed in 1740s; prolific scribe; houses at Coll Abbey, then Earl St., Dublin; names 26 scholars of his acquaintance in poem of 1726, among them Richard Tipper et al.; worked scribally for Anthony Raymond; Francis Stoughtan Sullivan, Prof. of Law at TCD; and Charles O’Conor of Belanagare; followed Francis Walsh, OFM, in lexicography; his Latin-Irish dictionary, a completion of Walsh’s, was bought by Marsh’s Library and is held as as MS Z3 1.13; his Irish-English dictionary is held in TCD as MS 1290; wrote geographical account of the world in Irish; translated portions from public journals into Irish; a son Peter (b.1709), became a Jesuit and spent time in Spain; probably ceased writing c.1743; Ó Neachtain anticipated Vallancey with a collation of Irish and Punic from the Poenulus of Plautus on 12 Aug. 1742. OCIL
Works
Latin-English-Gaelic dictionary. Begun and half finished by Fr. Francis Walsh of Dublin, Ordinis Minor, etc [1712] and completed by Tadhg Ó Neachtain [1730]. Marsh’s Library MS 649 fols., 31.6x19.3 [purches for £20 in c.1743].
References
Muriel McCarthy & Caroline Sherwood-Smith, eds., Hibernia Resurgens: Catalogue of Marsh’s Library (1994): b. 1641 [sic]; dg. Una Ní Bhruin; acc. Dr Alan Harrison, his poem ‘Slionnfeadh scothadh na Gaoidhlige [sic] grinn [I shall name the flower of Irsh learning]’ (1726-28) is one of the best sources for activities of Irish scholars in the period; a manuscript notes that he travelled to France in 1727 to buy or copy Irish MSS for a patron, bookseller or poss. himself; his manuscript Irish dictionary is in TCD; details on the probability that he was paid by the number of words (as acc de Bhaildraithe), or merely that he was showing th scope of his knowledge (acc. Harrison).
Notes
James Hardiman has harsh things to say about Col. Vallancey in a footnote of his Introduction to Irish Minstrelsy, or Bardic Remains (1831), charging him with availing of materials prepared by Sean O’Neactháin and printing them in Collectanea without attribution or credit. (See under Vallancey, infra.)
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