Scoil: Cill Mhór Iorruis

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1. Richard Barrett, the Bard of Mayo

   

   Roinn Roinn Postáil

   The amusing poem given below is one of many of the same character composed by Barrett. As it may be succeeded by a few others of his making, a short account of the poet will not perhaps, be without interest.

   Richard Barrett was a native of Leam, seven miles from Belmullet. He was born early in the last century, and died aged about 80, on the 8th December, 1819. He was buried at Holy Cross cemetery, where up to the present no stone marks his grave. His literary remains fared even worse than his bodily remains, all his papers having been burned after his death by his wife, who set no value on them. The collection of his poems now being made is from oral tradition.

   The house in which Barrett lived and taught was situated at Carn, in the north-east angle formed by the junction of the Blacksod and Carn Hill roads. It was standing as late as 1865, but hardly a trace of it now remains.

   In personal appearance, Barrett was of medium height and build, and of fair complexion.

   Knight, in his history of " Erris in the Irish Highlands, " says of Barrett, that " he was a man of real genius, though entirely unknown to the world, and his productions in verse and song are only now recollected by his countrymen in their convivial moments. He lived in Erris, and died about sixteen or eighteen years ago. This was Dick Barrett, the poet; a more original, delightful, feeling composer in his native language to all the grand and soul-stirring airs of Carolan, never delighted a native Irishman. Sweet, correct, mellifluous in his language and verse, his songs were listened to and sung by everyone who understood the beauties of their native language with the pleasurable feeling that a remnant of the bards of old had yet survived in Ireland. He showed me some unfinished verses. They were excellent, and I begged of him to copy them and to send them to me, but his modesty would not allow him. Though I am sure he had more composition than he ever showed to anyone, he so dreaded the eye of criticism, that, I fear, they died with him; and to this day there has been no collection made of his beautiful Irish songs. He was of the humbler class, got some education, and became a schoolmaster. His genius soon recommended him to the gentry of Erris, with whom he associated on the most friendly terms, and no society was considered complete in Erris without Dick Barrett's presence."

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