Life
?1565-1613 [var. ?1570-1617; Eochaidh Ua hEódhasa; O’Hussey;
fl.1630]; b. Enniskillen; ollamh to Maguire, enjoying old style right
to share chief’s bed; rival of Tadhg Dall Ó hUiginn; poss.
br. or cousin of Gille Bríghde, who went to Louvain; receives mention
in the Fiants of Elizabeth (nos. 4810, 5602 and 5716) both during the
chieftainship of Cú Chonnacht Maguire (d.1589), and that of his
successor Hugh Maguire; personal friend of Hugh whose bard he was; a poem
by him describes winter campaign of Maguire and Hugh O’Neill in the
south, 1599-1600, freely translated by Mangan; continued to hold lands
at Ballyhose after the plantation of Ulster’ died in high regard
among Gael and Gall; compares Hugh to a pelican when he is killed in battle;
celebrates beauty of Rose O’Byrne, burnt alive in the yard of Dublin
Castle; his last poem translates the recent war into classical terms,
with Red Hugh O’Donnell as Caesar, Hugh Maguire as Crassus, the English
as Pompey. ODNB DIW FDA OCIL
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Criticism
Tomás Ó Rathile, Danta Grádha (Cork 1926);
Eleanor Knott, An Introduction to Irish Syllabic Poetry of the Period
1200-1600 (Cork 1928); Dioghluim Dánta and Aithdioghluim
Dána [sic], both by Lambert McKenna S.J. (Dublin 1938, 1939);
also commentaries by O. J. Bergin in Studies VII (1918), X (1921),
XI (1922) and XII (1923); and see S. H. O’Grady, Catalogue of
Irish MSS in the British Museum, pp.448-81.
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References
Dictionary of National Biography refers to him briefly as
an Irish poet, fl. 1630.
Seamus Deane, gen. ed., The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (Derry: Field Day 1991), Vol. 1, prints The Winter Campaign [pp.278-79].
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