b. Westport, Mayo; native Irish speaker [Seamas Ó hArgadáin]; prepared for priesthood but prevented from proceeding due to blindness in one eye (acc. John O’Donovan); moved to Dublin and worked as sub-commissioner in Public Records Office, 1811-1830; purchased land in Mayo, c.1818; issued History of the County and Town of Galway (1820); returned to Galway, 1830; issued Irish Minstrelsy, or Bardic Remains (2 vols., 1831), and suffered a severe review by Samuel Ferguson in successive issues of the Dublin University Review underscored by religious and political objections to the Jacobite tendency of the notes and translations; refused Chair of Irish and became first librarian of Queen’s College, Galway shortly after its foundation [1845], 1848; d. Galway; a section of the Book of Fermoy consisting in at least 32 folios, separated from the main volume, came into his possession, and subsequently passed to the British Museum; the university library at University College, Galway is named after him. Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)

irish minstrelsy bardic remains