Eoghan Rua Ó Súilleabháin Eoghan Rua Ó Súilleabháin ( 1748 – 29 June 1782 ) , anglicized as Owen Roe O ' Sullivan ( " Red Owen " ) , was an Irish poet . Ó Súilleabháin is known as one of the last great Gaelic poets . A recent anthology of Irish - language poetry speaks of his " extremely musical " poems full of " astonishing technical virtuosity " and also notes that " Eoghan Rua is still spoken of and quoted in Irish - speaking districts in Munster as one of the great wits and playboys of the past . " Eoghan Rua was relatively unknown to English speakers until 1924 , although famous among Irish - speakers , especially in Munster . In a 1903 book , Douglas Hyde , an Irish scholar from Roscommon who had learned Irish , referred to him as " a schoolmaster named O ' Sullivan , in Munster " in his book " The Songs of Connacht " ( which includes a drinking song by Ó Súilleabháin ) . The 1911 version of the Encyclopædia Britannica mentioned Eoghan Rua in an article on " Celtic Literature , " calling him " the cleverest of the Jacobite poets " and noting that " his verses and bon " s mots " are still well known in Munster . " In 1924 , Daniel Corkery devoted a chapter of his groundbreaking book " The Hidden Ireland " ( 1924 ) to Eoghan Rua Ó Súilleabháin . The book was the first comprehensive look at the world of Irish - speakers during the 18th century , a period which had been considered completely barren except for English - language literature . Corkery writes , " ' What Pindar is to Greece , what Burns is to Scotland . . . that and much more is Eoghan Ruadh to Ireland . ' Alas ! it is by no means so ; but were Father Dinneen to write : " that and much more was Eoghan Ruadh to Gaelic Munster , " he would have understated rather than overstated the matter . " He then discussed at length the way country people came alive at the mention of Ó Súilleabháin ' s name , and could recite long poems and a hundred stories about him . " Eoghan Rua ' s life was . . . tragic , but then he was a wastrel with a loud laugh . " Ó Súilleabháin is most famous for his " aisling " [ pron . " ashling " ] poems , in which the vision of a beautiful woman comes to the poet in his sleep — the woman also often symbolizing the tragic Ireland of his time . Most of the following information comes from Corkery ' s work . Corkery in his turn depended on a book in the Irish language , " Amhráin Eoghain Ruaidh Uí Shúilleabháin " , or " Songs of Eoghan Rua Ó Súilleabháin " , written by the priest An t - Athair Pádraig Ua Duinnín ( Father Dinneen ) . Biography . Early life . Eoghan Rua was born in 1748 in Sliabh Luachra , a mountainous part of County Kerry , in southwestern Ireland . He was from a once - prominent sept that like so many others gradually lost its land and its leaders in the successive British conquests of Ireland . By the time of his birth , most of the native Irish in the southwest had been reduced to landless poverty in a " houseless and unpeopled , " mountainous region . But the landlord was MacCarthy Mór , one of the few native Irish Chiefs of the Name to have retained some power , and a distant relative of the Ó Súilleabháin sept ; and in Sliabh Luachra there was at the time one of the last " classical schools " of Irish poetry , descended from the ancient , rigorous schools that had trained bards and poets in the days of Irish domination . In these last few remnants of the bardic schools , Irish poets competed for attention and rewards , and learned music , English , Latin and Greek . Eoghan Rua ( the " Rua " refers to his red hair ) was witty and charming , but had the misfortune to live at a time when an Irish Catholic had no professional future in his own country because of the anti - Catholic Penal Laws . He also had a reckless character and threw away the few opportunities he was given . At eighteen , he opened his own school , and " all his life through , whenever his fortunes were hopeless , on this empty trade Eoghan was to fall back . " But " an incident occurred , nothing to his credit , which led to the break - up of his establishment . " Eoghan Rua then became a spalpeen [ Irish " spailpín " ] , or itinerant farm worker , until he was 31 years old . He then was forced to join the army under interesting circumstances . Ó Súilleabháin was then working for the Nagle family , a wealthy Anglo - Irish , but Catholic and Irish - speaking , family in Fermoy , County Cork . ( The Nagles were themselves an unusual family . The mother of British politician Edmund Burke was one of these Nagles , as was Nano Nagle , the founder of the charitable Presentation order of nuns . ) Corkery writes , " I have had it told to myself that one day in their farmyard he heard a woman , another farm - hand , complain that she had need to write a letter to the master of the house , and had failed to find anyone able to do so . " I can do that for you , " Eoghan said , and though misdoubting , she consented that he should . Pen and paper were brought him , and he sat down and wrote the letter in four languages — in Greek , in Latin , in English , in Irish . " Who wrote this letter ? " the master asked the woman in astonishment ; and the red - headed young labourer was brought before him ; questioned , and thereupon set to teach the children of the house . . . Owing to his bad behavior he had to fly the house , the master pursuing him with a gun . " Legend says he was forced to flee when he got a woman pregnant - - some say it was Mrs . Nagle . ( see " Suantraí dá Mhac Tabhartha " , which may relate to this incident ) . Later years . Ó Súilleabháin escaped to the British military barracks in Fermoy . The British Empire was then in the midst of the American Revolutionary War , using impressment to fill its dire need for sailors . Ó Súilleabháin soon found himself aboard a British ship in the West Indies , " one of those thousands of barbarously mistreated seamen . " He sailed under Admiral Sir George Rodney and took part in the famous 1782 sea Battle of the Saintes , against the French admiral Comte de Grasse . The British won . To ingratiate himself with the Admiral , Ó Súilleabháin wrote an English - language poem called " Rodney ' s Glory " about the battle and presented it to the Admiral , who offered to promote him . Ó Súilleabháin asked to be set free from service , but " an officer named MacCarthy , a Kerryman . . . interposed and said : ' Anything but that ; we would not part from you for love or money . ' Eoghan turned away , saying , " Imireaochaimíd beart eigin eile oraibh " ( ' I will play some other trick upon you ' ) . MacCarthy , who understood his remark , replied : ' I ' ll take good care , Sullivan , you will not . ' " Corkery writes of the odd contrast between the English view of Eoghan Rua , who must have seemed an awkward , rascally fellow to the Admiral , and the Irish author of " perfect lyrics , with the intuitional poet in every line of them ! " Much of Eoghan Rua ' s life is unknown . He returned after the wars to Kerry and opened a school again . Soon afterwards , aged 35 , he died from fever that set in after he was struck by a pair of tongs in an alehouse quarrel , by a servant of a local Anglo - Irish family . " The story of how , after the fracas in Knocknagree in which he was killed , a young woman lay down with him and tempted him to make sure he was really dead , was passed on with relish . " He was buried in midsummer , 1784 , near or possibly in Muckross Abbey . Long - lived reputation . In spite of his luckless life , Eoghan Rua was well - beloved and legendary in his own time , and his songs and poems have passed down in the Gaeltacht , or Irish - speaking regions , of Munster , by word of mouth right up until the present day . Yeats used aspects of Ó Súilleabháin ' s reputation in his stories of Red Hanrahan , his invented alter ego , whose given name is " Owen , " who carries a copy of Virgil in his pocket , " the hedge schoolmaster , a tall , strong , red - haired young man . " John Millington Synge mentions Owen Roe in his famous play The Playboy of the Western World : the heroine Pegeen compares the Playboy , Christy , to him : " If you weren ' t destroyed travelling , you ' d have as much talk and streeleen , I ' m thinking , as Owen Roe O ' Sullivan or the poets of the Dingle Bay , and I ' ve heard all times it ' s the poets are your like , fine fiery fellows with great rages when their temper ' s roused . " Synge had spent much time in West Kerry and spoke Irish , so he had certainly heard the legends of Owen Roe ; Christy ' s character resembles that of Owen Roe in many points . Thanks in part to Corkery ' s book , Ó Súilleabháin has become more widely known in English over the years . The Irish musician Seán Ó Riada wrote a play based on the life of Owen Roe , called " A Spailpín a Rún " ( My Darling Spalpeen ) . The song of the same name is part of the " Lament " in the music of the 1997 film . There is a memorial to him at Knocknagree , County Cork . According to the Irish writer Frank O ' Connor , Eoghan Rua ' s songs are as popular among Irish - speakers as those of Robert Burns are in Scotland . One of the most popular drinking songs in Ireland today is attributed to him : " Bímíd ag ól is ag pógadh na mBan " ( Let us be drinking and kissing the women " ) . Translated into English in a book by Petrie ( 1855 ) , one of its verses goes : My name is Ó Súilleabháin , a most eminent teacher ; < br > My qualifications will ne ' er be extinct ; < br > I ' d write as good Latin as any in the nation ; < br > No doubt I ' m experienced in arithmetic . " Owen Roe lived at the worst time in history for an Irish poet , when the Penal Laws were killing the ancient way of life and when Catholics had no legal way to make a professional living . He was a brilliant , red - haired , hard - living brawler , called " Owen of the Sweet Mouth " [ " Eoghan an Bhéil Bhinn " ] , and in Munster I have myself still met Irish speakers who passed down the folk memory of his great charm . Literary works . According to Dinneen , none of Ó Súilleabháin ' s poems were printed in his lifetime . He wrote his poems and they spread through song . He was most famous for his " Aisling " poems , set to popular music , about beautiful women , symbolizing Ireland in degradation at a time when the country ' s fortunes were at its nadir . The woman is described in great physical detail , and at least one of the poems is pornographic . The " Aisling " , or vision of Erin . . . became in the hands of Eoghan a powerful means of instructing and delighting the popular mind . His was a time in which the study of Irish history and historical legend was rapidly on the wane . . . The " Aisling " . . . served to keep alive the leading traditions of the past . The uneducated peasant . . . did not advert to the fact that he was receiving a lesson in history . . . Perhaps there never was a poet so entirely popular - - never one of whom it could be more justly said " volitar vivus per ora virum " [ He soars , alive in the mouths of the people ] . His songs were sung everywhere . . . Munster was spellbound for generations . . . The present generation , to whom the Irish language is not vernacular , in reading these poems should bear in mind that they were all intended to be sung , and to airs then perfectly understood by the people , and that no adequate idea can be informed of their power over the Irish mind , unless they are heard sung by an Irish - speaking singer to whom they are familiar . An example of the first verse of one of his poems ( set to the tune " John O ' Dwyer of the Glen " ) : " Mo chás ! mo chaoi ! mo cheasna ! " < br > " An fáth thug claoidhte i n - easbaidh " < br > " fáide , draoite , sagairt , " < br > " dáim agus cléir , " < br > " gan dán dá ríomh le haiteas , " < br > " gan ráidte grinn dá n - aithris , " < br > " gan sám - chruit bhinn dá spreagadh " , < br > " i mbán - bhrogaidh réidhe ! " < br > " ' s gach ráib d ' fhuil Mhíleadh ceannais , " < br > " l ' áidir , laochda , tapa , " < br > " ba ghnáthach rinnceach , reathach , " < br > " lán - oilte ar faobhar . " < br > " Gan stát , gan mhaoin , gan fearann , " < br > " ár is míle measa " < br > " ' ná Seán Ua Duibhir an Ghleanna " < br > " fástha gan game . " My trouble ! My lament ! My torment ! < br > The cause which left broken , in want , < br > prophets , poets , and priests , < br > the scholars and the clergy , < br > - - no more poems composed with pleasure , < br > no more telling of witty stories , < br > no more lively musical harp - playing , < br > in tranquil fair mansions ! < br > Every scion of the Milesian chiefs , < br > strong , courteous , quick , < br > used to dancing and racing , < br > skilful with weapons , < br > now without state , without wealth , without land , < br > slaughter and a thousand things worse < br > than John O ' Dwyer of the Glens * < br > left without game . < br >