Transcript

Dhiúltaigh sé a lámh a thóigeáilt agus dúirt sé:

Go deimhin, a Mhichíl 'ic Suibhne go cinnte tá an marg leat,
Beidh mé á fhágáil sna leabharthaí i gcoirnéal ar bith,
Droichead a dhéanamh (...) lár tíre nó barúntacht,
Níorbh é sin féin an ghreannúlacht nó an bhrí a bhí agam ort.
Dúradh lóistín a dhéanamh go ceann míosa agus a (theachtaire),
Tugadh ch(...) bealach le muintir (sa sto)(...),
Ach sé an (bhean) atá dhá aithris a'm go cinnte (dhá) (...) leis... leat
Fanacht leis an (gca)(...) agus bímse i mo thost.

Translation

He refused to lift his hand and he said:

Indeed, Michael MacSweeney the mark is with you surely,
I will be leaving it in the books in any corner,
To build a bridge (...) midlands or barony,
That was not the (...) or my reading of you.
It was ordered to make lodgings for a month and (...),
(...) was given (...),
But it is surely the woman who (...) you
To stay with the (...) and I be silent.

Commentary

This may represent the second part of a poetic combat between the folk poet Mícheál Mac Suibhne and a gentleman. Mac Suibhne (c.1760-c.1820) was originally from near Cong in county Mayo, but spent much of his life in Conamara. See Máire Ní Mhurchú and Diarmuid Breathnach, 1782-1881: Beathaisnéis (Dublin, 1999), 75. One of his most famous poems is a comic satire entitled 'Iorras Fhlonnáin', and the current example seems to be another such satire, although many poems that were not composed by him were subsequently attributed to him in the folk tradition. For a collection of poems associated with Mac Suibhne see Tomás Ó Maille, Mícheál Mac Suibhne agus filidh an tsléibhe (Dublin, 1934). Another recording from the Doegen collection by the same informant, Bhí Mícheál Mac Suibhne, may represent the first part of this story, although this is far from clear, since the language in both is indistinct and the text is not continuous.