Daniel Considine, Scribe
Posted: Sat Mar 11, 2017 2:20 pm
Daniel Considine, Michael Considine and Michael Considines were scribes in the Irish language and lived in Ennis in the 19th century. I am interested in Daniel Considine in particular. Almost all my information on him is from an article by Eilis Ni Dhea, in The Other Clare, Vol. 26 (2002): “Na Consaidinigh: Grafnoiri na hInse sa 19u haois” (The Considines, Scribes of Ennis in the 19th century). Some of Daniel’s manuscripts are held in the archives of Irish universities, U.C.D, U.C.C., N.U.I.G. and also in Cambridge.
He does not seem to have had a patron, but had contact with other Irish scholars, including Douglas Hyde. He was very friendly with Bryan O’Looney, from Monreel, Rath, and some of the correspondence between them has survived.
Daniel was from Caherbannagh, Kilnamona. He writes at the end of one of his manuscripts that Caherbannagh is three miles North-West of Ennis (I think these must be Irish miles). By 1855, he was giving Jail Street, Ennis, as his address, but he must have continued to visit Caherbannagh - a letter written in 1861 gives that address.
Eilis Ni Dhea does not give his date of death, but the Calendar of Wills shows that he died on 21st Feb. 1877. Administration of his estate (less than £50) was granted to his brother, Patrick, from Caherbannagh. Daniel’s occupation is given as Shop Assistant, and this is the occupation given for him in the civil record of his death (caused by a visitation by God). He was aged 56 then, so he must have been born about 1820.
“Donald MacConsidine”, as he sometimes signed himself, gets a mention (not very complimentary) in James Joyce’s Ulysses, in the Cyclops chapter, where his poetry is compared to the growlings of Citizen’s dog, Garryowen https://www.jstor.org/stable/25486786?s ... b_contents.
I would like to know more about him. For instance I would like to know who it was that kept some of his papers and gave them to the institutions where they have been preserved. And I would like to know if any article, apart from the one by Eilis Ni Dhea, has been written on him. Indeed I would be glad any bit of information at all.
Sheila
He does not seem to have had a patron, but had contact with other Irish scholars, including Douglas Hyde. He was very friendly with Bryan O’Looney, from Monreel, Rath, and some of the correspondence between them has survived.
Daniel was from Caherbannagh, Kilnamona. He writes at the end of one of his manuscripts that Caherbannagh is three miles North-West of Ennis (I think these must be Irish miles). By 1855, he was giving Jail Street, Ennis, as his address, but he must have continued to visit Caherbannagh - a letter written in 1861 gives that address.
Eilis Ni Dhea does not give his date of death, but the Calendar of Wills shows that he died on 21st Feb. 1877. Administration of his estate (less than £50) was granted to his brother, Patrick, from Caherbannagh. Daniel’s occupation is given as Shop Assistant, and this is the occupation given for him in the civil record of his death (caused by a visitation by God). He was aged 56 then, so he must have been born about 1820.
“Donald MacConsidine”, as he sometimes signed himself, gets a mention (not very complimentary) in James Joyce’s Ulysses, in the Cyclops chapter, where his poetry is compared to the growlings of Citizen’s dog, Garryowen https://www.jstor.org/stable/25486786?s ... b_contents.
I would like to know more about him. For instance I would like to know who it was that kept some of his papers and gave them to the institutions where they have been preserved. And I would like to know if any article, apart from the one by Eilis Ni Dhea, has been written on him. Indeed I would be glad any bit of information at all.
Sheila