Dominic Ó Mongain

Dominic Ó Mongáin, or Dominic Mungan, was an Irish harper and poet, born around 1715 in County Tyrone. The poem and air An raibh tú ag an gCarraig?, translated by Walsh as Have you been at Carrick?, has been attributed to him.

He was the father of Charles Warburton, an Anglican bishop who served as both Bishop of Limerick and Bishop of Cloyne.

Life Relatively little is known of his life. The harper Arthur O'Neill mentioned him in his memoirs, stating that Ó Mongáin (Mungan) lived in Strabane, and had previously taught him several tunes, none of which he could now remember:

In my travels I became acquainted with a Dominic Mungan, I may say I had known him since I was twelve years old. He was born blind in the County of Tyrone, and a real good harper. He was a Roman Catholic. [...] He was a great economist, but would spend money as genteelly as any man occasionally. He had three sons, Mark, John, and Terence, whom he educated in the first style.

Ó Doibhlin noted a further record of a "Domini Mungan of Tyrone":

[...] listed by Echlin O'Kean [...] as one of four second rate players on the harp alive in 1797/1798. His surname possibly indicates that he was a native of Termonmongan in the Castlederg area of Tyrone. Poetry writing and harp playing seem on occasions to have gone hand in hand in Gaelic Ireland, but O'Mongáin did not appear at the Harp Festival of 1792 in Belfast, and I have found no further references to him.

Ó Mongáin in fact appears to have died in the 1770s, long prior to the Harp Festival.

The air printed in Bunting's Ancient Music of Ireland as Sin Sios agus suas liom, "Down beside me" and stated to be "the original of Shepherds, I have lost my Love", was said by Bunting to have been taken from a transcribed performance by Ó Mongáin.