Fionán Mac Cártha: Gaelic poet in Queensland

Abstract

Fionán Mac Cártha was born in Roscommon, in the West of Ireland in 1886. As a young man he took an interest in the Irish language. Self-taught, he gained fluency in Irish through conversing with the old people in the district and attendance at language schools. As a twenty-year-old, he was a member of Conradh na Gaeilge, (The Gaelic League), an organisation which was founded in 1893 with the purpose of keeping the Irish language spoken in Ireland. For Mac Cártha the poet there was but one home, Ireland, and one language that spoke of home, the Irish language.