School: Finiskill (roll number 13075)
- Location:
- Finiskil, Co. Leitrim
- Teacher: Cathal Ó Floinn
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0219, Page 396
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- Owen Mc'Gann was a poet wholived in Kilamawn a townland situated about two miles from Mohill in the Carrick-on-Shannon direction. Tom Harvey, a poet who was blind for the last ten years of his life, lived in Ohill in a house situated about three hundred yards from this school (Finiskill). The former poet was born about 1840 and died 1912. Both poets are buried in the parochial cementery in Mohill.
Mc'Gann was descended from a celebrated local scholar named Francis Mc'Gann and probably inherited his gift of verse-making from his illustrious forbear. Harvey's ancestors, as well as he himself, were musically, rather than poetically inclined but the gift of poetry seemed to have been inherited by Tom, as versemaking seemed as second nature to him.
Owen Mc'Gann composed more poems than Harvey and the name of some of them are: Francis Mc'Gann which is an appreciation of his ancestor of that name who died under tragic circumstances, "Ode to Peter Clyne", "Sweet Trumlara Town", "Treacherous Trumdoo" and "The strange girl from Corlara". All the poems of both these men were written in English.(continues on next page)
