It has been found impossible to preserve the metre in translation, or to force English words to musical airs which were composed to suit the accents, the vowel assonance, and other peculiarities of Irish metre. O'Carolan's knowledge of English was very slight, as is apparent in his poetical address of one English stanza to Miss Fetherstone. To his melodies, critical as well as general admiration has been freely accorded. As a musical genius he was original, representative, many-sided. His earliest pieces show him to have followed his predecessors, the O'Kanes and others, who played old Irish music only. The later productions of the bard exhibit the influence of the foreign school, and his imitations of Corelli became very apparent, particularly in the responses between treble and bass, in his ‘Concerto,’ ‘Madam Bermingham,’ ‘Lady Blaney,’ ‘Colonel O'Hara,’ ‘Mrs. Crofton,’ and ‘Madam Cole’ (Bunting). His music was in the highest degree popular in his own country. It continued to be so as long as Irish was spoken, and much of it may still be heard in the counties of Meath, Cavan, Roscommon, and Sligo. It was first publicly introduced into England as part of the musical setting of O'Keeffe's ‘Poor Soldier,’ and others of his plays; Arnold and Shield noted down the airs from O'Keeffe's singing.
About fifty pieces, in excellent setting, are included in Bunting's three collections of ‘Ancient Music of Ireland,’ published in 1796, 1809, and 1840 respectively. A number of airs were published in Terence Carolan's ‘Collection of O'Carolan's Compositions,’ 2nd edit. 1780. The Irish verses of several, with paraphrases in English, are in Hardiman's ‘Irish Minstrelsy,’ which also contains an account of the bard and his peregrinations. In the ‘Transactions of the Iberno-Celtic Society’ Edward O'Reilly, who was assisted by Paul O'Brien, a native of O'Carolan's district, mentions twenty-four of his poems. Among the chief are six on events of his own life, the most famous being ‘Mas tinn no slan do tharlaidh me’ (‘If sickness or health happen to me’), commonly called ‘The Receipt,’ and the air of which is known to nearly every fiddler and piper in Ireland, and the words to all who sing in Irish. In all, about one hundred pieces by O'Carolan are accounted for in the works noticed, while more no doubt exist in the manuscript collections of verse to be found here and there in Ireland.
[Walker's Irish Bards, 1786, p. 156, and App. vi.; O'Keeffe's Recollections, ii. 17, 70, 77, 357; Bunting's Ancient Music of Ireland, 1840, pp. 9, 71; Forster's Life of Goldsmith, p. 11; Goldsmith's Works, iii. 271; Walsh's Hist. of Dublin, ii. 903; Grove's Dict. of Music, ii. 490; O'Reilly in Trans. of Iberno-Celtic Soc. Dublin, 1820; authorities quoted.]
O'CARROLL, MAOLSUTHAIN (d. 1031), confessor of Brian (926–1014) [q. v.], king of Ireland, was probably son of Maolsuthain Ua Cearbhaill, or O'Carroll, who died at Inisfallen, in the lower Lake of Killarney, in 1009, chief of Eoghanacht Locha Lein, and famous for learning. Brian's brother Marcan was the chief ecclesiastic of Munster (Annala Rioghachta Eireann, 1009) in the time of the elder Maolsuthain, and it was perhaps through Marcan that the younger became attached to Brian. O'Carroll accompanied Brian in his journey round Ireland in 1004, and at Armagh wrote in the ‘Book of Armagh,’ on f. 16b, the short charter in Latin, which is still legible, and ends with the words ‘ego scripsi id est calvus perennis in conspectu briain imperatoris scotorum et quod scripsi finituit pro omnibus regibus maceriæ.’ ‘Calvus perennis’ is a version of Maolsuthain (maol = bald, and suthain = everlasting), while Maceria is a translation of the Irish word Caisil or Cashel, the chief city of Munster. There is no satisfactory evidence that O'Carroll wrote any part of the ‘Annals of Inisfallen,’ as is suggested by E. O'Curry (Lectures, p. 79) and E. O'Reilly (Irish Writers, p. 70). In a manuscript of 1434 there is a curious tale of O'Carroll, which has been printed by O'Curry (Lectures, p. 77, and App. p. xli). Three of Maolsuthain's pupils wished to visit Judæa. He told them they would die there, but gave them leave to go on condition that they should visit him after their deaths and tell him how long he should live, and what should be his doom after death. They died, asked the archangel Michael for the information, and thus learned that their tutor had three years and a half to live, and that at the day of judgment he would be sent to hell, for three reasons: The way he interpolated the canon, his profligate conduct, and his omission to recite the hymn of St. Columba known as ‘Altus prosator.’ His pupils returned as white doves, and communicated the gloomy intelligence. He announced his intention of abandoning vice and ceasing to interpolate the holy scriptures, of fasting three days a week, of performing one hundred genuflexions a day, and repeating the Altus seven times every night, and asked the doves to return on the day of his death. They came, informed him that heaven was now open to him, and flew off with his soul. His manuscripts, the tale adds, are still in the church of Inisfallen. He died in 1031.
