Life
?1180-1250 [vars. Muireadhach Albanach O’Daly; Murdock O’Daly]; b. Co. Meath, chief poet of O’Donnells, killed a servant
of Donal O’Donnell, and fled to the Norman Burkes of Clanricard,
and when the O’Donnell’s ravaged the territory, was passed on
to the O’Briens; fled to Limerick; forced to escape
to Dublin and sent from thence to Scotland; the Clan Mac Muircadhaigh
claim descent from him; made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land; offered a praise poem to the O’Donnell on his return; granted land and
cattle by him as token of forgiveness; entered monastery with his brother Donnchadh Mór
in his last years following the death of his wife; his lament for her from the Book of the Dean of Lismore is noticed also in The Annals of the Four Masters. ODNB DIW OCIL
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Works
Eugene O’Curry, ed., Book of Dean of Lismore [3 poems].
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Criticism
E. C. Quiggin, ‘Prolegomena to the Study of the Later Irish Bards 1200-1500’, Proceedings of the British Academy, Volo. V, App. A (1913); Osborn J. Bergin has written on Ó Dálaigh in Studies IX (1920), and Studies XIV (1925), and Studies XIII (1924); Meidhbhín Ní Úrdail, ‘Two Poems Attributed to Muireadhach Albanach Ó Dálaigh’, in Eriú , vol. 53 (2003), qpp.
See also Eugene O’Curry, On the Manner and Customs of the Ancient Irish (1873), Vol II, Lect. XXXIII [Mac Lauchlan unaware that he was Irish]; and T. F. Ó Ratháille, Measgra Dánta (Cork 1927).
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References
Dictionary
of National Biography: fl.1213, wrote three poems in praise of
O’Donnell, which led to his being forgiven by that noble.
Church of Ireland Hymnal (1960 & 1987 edns.), contains ‘Baoth a csoidhe, a Mhic Dé’, by Murdock O’Daly, 13th c., trans. Eleanor Hull [No.324]
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Notes
Alan Titley has based a novel on the life of his life of uireadhach Albanach Ó Dálaigh, as An Fear Dána (Baile
Átha Cliath: An Clóchomhar 1993).
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