John O'Cullane

Alfred Webb

1878

O'Cullane, John, a man of considerable poetic genius, a Gaelic writer, descended from an ancient Irish sept stripped of their possessions by the Cromwellian settlement, was born in the County of Cork, about 1752. Several beautiful pieces of his poetry are to be met with in Munster, where they are held in high estimation. His soliloquy on Timoleague Abbey, so effectively translated by Samuel Ferguson, is considered one of the finest modern poems in the Irish language. Most of his life was passed as a school-master; he died at Skibbereen in 1816, aged 64.

Sources

188. Irish Minstrelsy: James Hardiman. 2 vols. London, 1831.

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