Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/O'Cullane, John

1426074Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 41 — O'Cullane, John1895Norman Moore

O'CULLANE, JOHN (1754–1816), Irish poet, called in Irish O'Cuiléin, and in English often Collins, was born in co. Cork in 1754. He belonged to a family whose original territory was Ui Conaill Gabra (O'Donovan, O'Huidhrin), now the baronies of Upper and Lower Connello, co. Limerick. Many of them still inhabit the district, but the chief family of the clan was driven from his original estate and settled near Timoleague, co. Cork, where the family was finally dispossessed by the Boyles, earls of Cork. Several of the O'Cullanes are buried in the Franciscan abbey of Timoleague. His parents had a small farm, gave him a good education, and wished to make him a priest. He, however, preferred to be a schoolmaster, married, and had several children. His school was at Myross in Carbery.

Many of his poems are extant in Munster, and Mr. Standish Hayes O'Grady has some manuscripts written by him, including part of a history of Ireland and part of an English-Irish dictionary. Two of his poems have been printed and translated—‘An buachaill bán’ (‘The Fair-haired Boy’), written in 1782, published in 1860 by John O'Daly; and ‘Machtnadh an duin e dhoilghiosaidh’ (‘Meditation of the Sorrowful Person’) which is printed in Irish (Hardiman, Irish Minstrelsy, ii. 234), and paraphrased in verse by Thomas Furlong and by Sir Samuel Ferguson. He also translated into Irish Campbell's ‘Exile of Erin.’ He died at Skibbereen, co. Cork, in 1816.

[Hardiman's Irish Minstrelsy, ii. 234–5, 401–11, London, 1831; the Poets and Poetry of Munster, 2nd ser., Dublin, 1860; O'Donovan's Topographical Poem of O'Huidhrin, Dublin, 1862; Lewis's Topographical Dictionary of Ireland, ed. ii., London, 1850; Webb's Compendium of Irish Biography, Dublin, 1878.]