Life
?1802-?1865 [var. Kearney]; b. Thomastown, nr. Dundalk; issued Prophecies
of Columbkille, exposed as forgeries; verse includes ‘Ar sáile
anonn’ and ‘Cumha na Mathara’; member of Ossianic society,
and editor of texts for John O’Daly and that society. IF OCIL
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Works
The Prophecies of Saints Colum-Cille, Maeltamlacht, Ultan, Senan, Bearcan
and Malachy, as compiled, translated and annotated by … N. O’Kearney,
&c. (Dublin: J. Duffy & Co. 1925) [printed in Holland], xii+137pp.;
8o. [BML].
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Criticism
Seán Ó Dúfaigh & Diarmaid Ó Doiblin, Nioclás
Ó Cearnaigh, Beatha agus Saothar (Baile Átha Cliath:
An Clóchomhar 1993).
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References
Ireland
in Fiction, ed. Stephen Brown (Dublin: Maunsel 1919), The Battle
of Gabhra (John O’Daly 1853), edited for the first time and printed
for Ossianic Society with intro. and trans. [Fianna finally defeated by
Cairbre, King of Leinster, 283 AD]; The Story of Conn-eda, or The Golden
Apples of Loch Erne, from the Irish (London: J. R. Smith 1855), 17pp.,
rep. from Proc. of Cambrian Arch. Assoc.; The Festivities at the House
of Conan of Ceann-Sleibhe (Dublin: John O’Daly 1855); also ed.,
Transactions of the Ossianic Soc. I (1854).
The Festivities of Conan of Ceann-Sleibhe in the County of Clare [Trans. of the Ossianic Soc.] (1855), copy owned by Edward Fitzgerald of Youghal, with his annotations [Hyland 224].
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Quotations
‘Feast in Conán’s House’ [The Festivities at
the House of Conan of Ceann-Sleibhe, 1855]);: ‘Tell me,’
said Conan, ‘which are the sweetest strains you ever enjoyed?’/‘I
will tell you,’ replied Fionn. ‘When the seven constant battalions
of the Fenians assemble on [one] plain (and raise their standards of chivalry
above their heads), then when the howling, whistling blast of the dry,
cold wind rushes through them and over them, that is very sweet to me.
(When the drinking hall is furnished in Almhuin, and the cup-bearers hand
the bright cups of chaste workmanship to the chiefs of the Fenians) the
ring of the cups, when drained to the last drop, on the tables of the
Bruighin, is very sweet to me. Sweet to me is the scream of the seagull,
and of the heron, the roar of the waves on Traigh-lidhe [Tralee], the
song of the three sons of Meardha, the whistling of Mac Lughaidh, the
Dord of Fearsgaradh, the voice of the cuckoo in the first month of summer,
the grunting of the hogs on Magh Eitne, [the thudding (of the hooves)
(?) of the stag of Ceara in Cnocroe and the cry of the hunt of Derrynish]’ (Cited
in ‘Comparatively Untapped Sources’, in Anne Clune & Tess
Hurson, eds., Conjuring Complexities , 1997, p.25.)
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