Antoine Ó Raifteiri
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Antoine Ó Raifteiri (Anthony Raftery) (1784 - 1835) was an Irish language poet who is often called the last of the wandering bards.
A native of Kiltimagh, County Mayo, Ó Raifteiri was blinded by smallpox and lived by playing his fiddle and performing his songs and poems in the big houses of the West of Ireland. His work, which draws on the forms and idiom of folk poetry, is widely regarded as marking the end of the literary tradition of the bardic schools.[citation needed] None of his poems were written down during the poet's lifetime, but they were collected later by Douglas Hyde, Lady Gregory and others.[1]
Ó Raifteiri's most enduring poems include Eanach Dhuin, Cill Aodain which are still learned by Irish schoolchildren. Although many people think it is he who wrote " Mise Raifteirí an File" it was in fact written in America toward the end of the 19th C by Seán O Ceallaigh. The first four lines of Mise Raifteiri an File appeared on the reverse of the Series C Irish five pound note. They read-
- Mise Raifteirí, an file,
- lán dóchais is grá
- le súile gan solas,
- ciúineas gan crá
- Dul siar ar mo aistear,
- le solus mo Chroidhe,
- Fann agus tuirseadh,
- go deireadh mo shlighe
- Feach anois mé 's
- mo aghaidh ar bhalla,
- Ag seinm ceoil
- le pocaibh falamh.
ENGLISH TRANSLATION
- I am Raftery the poet,
- full of hope and love
- Having eyes without sight,
- lonely I rove.
- Going on my journeying
- by my heart's light
- Weary and tired
- of unending night.
- Take a look at me now
- with my back to a wall
- Singing and playing
- for nothing at all
[edit] References
- ^ Bartleby. http://www.bartleby.com/250/142.html Retrieved Feb. 24, 2007.
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