Life
[?-?; Senchan Torpéist]; early Irish druidic poet [filí] and chief bard of Connacht, succeeding Dallán Forgaill as Chief Ollamh of Ireland in 640; d. 649; he is mentioned in the MSS Tromdamh Guaire, Cóir Anmann, and in also Keating’s History of Ireland [Foras feasa ar Eirinn, 1633-36].
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Notes
Hugh Kenner, A Colder Eye: The Modern Irish Writers (NY: Knopf 1983): In the course of remarks on Yeats’s phrase ‘the rhyme the rats hear’ in “Parnell’s Funeral”, Kenner indicates that T. R. Henn has pointed to Shakespeare's line in As You Like It: ‘I was never so berhymed since Pythagoras’ time that I was an Irish rat which I can hardly remember’, and notes that the Halliday 1856 Edn. of the play cites Irish bard Senchan Torpest as killing 10 rats at Gort. (See A. N. Jeffares, A New Commentary on the Poems of W. B. Yeats., 1984, p.344; Kenner, op. cit., p.81.)
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