Séamas Dall Mac Cuarta

Séamas Dall Mac Cuarta (c. 1647? – 1733) was an Irish poet. He was the originator of a seventeenth and eighteenth century Irish language school of poets, centred on the Oirialla region of the south-east of the province of Ulster and north of Leinster. Mac Cuarta's work emerged from a region in which there was no previous strong poetic tradition, unlike in north-western Ulster, and inspired a number of followers such as Peadar Ó Doirnín and Art Mac Cumhaigh: although Kilkerley to the north-west of Dundalk is also mentioned as bearing links to his life; he appears to have spent most of his life moving around this area and the Boyne Valley. As his name suggests, he was either blind or had seriously impaired vision and, at a time when gentry patronage of the poetic class was on the wane, this placed more emphasis on his literary skills rather than the traditional poetic tools of flattery towards their patrons. He was, by all accounts, very sociable and among his friends were fellow musicians and poets Niall Óg Mac Mhurchaidh, Pádraig Mac Giolla Fhiondáin (1665–1733), and Toirdhealbhach Ó Cearbhalláin (1670–1738). They are contained in about 130 manuscripts, the earliest of which is from 1690.