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 purchased 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
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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].
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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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