User:Fergananim/Seamus 'ac Cosgair

Seamus 'ac Cosgair (in English, James Cosgrave), Irish poet, fl. 1820?

'Ac Cosgair was a native of County Mayo who was forced to "take the roads, selling hides and begging" after an argument with his fiance ended in a row in an alehouse, possibly over the dowry. 'Ac Cosgair " lived in the early nineteenth century, and according to tradition, he composed An Abhainn Mhor one evening in Tralee after he had been refused a night's lodging in thirteen houses. ... Folklore has it that Seamus's impromptu outpouring so softened his listerners' hearts that he was given thirteen nights lodging in Tralee." It contains the lines: Remembering my thousand treasures, who would give me drink and gaming at the table/married to another man, while I'm a poor tramp wandering around.

References

County Mayo in Gaelic Folksong", Brian O'Rourke, pp. 177–78, "Mayo:Aspects of its Heritige", ed. Bernard O'Hara, 1982.

[[Category:Irish Gaelic poets]] [[Category:People from County Mayo]] [[Category:Year of death missing]] [[Category:19th-century Irish people]] [[Category:Irish poets]] {{Ireland-stub}} {{Ireland-writer-stub}}