Aindrias Mac Craith

Mac Craith, Aindrias (‘An Mangaire Súgach’ (The Merry Pedlar)) (?1708-1795), poet. Born probably near Kilmallock, Co. Limerick, he spent much of his life in Croom. Although he is remembered as a rake, he was a teacher of note and one of the two chief poets of the Maigue school (‘filí na Máighe’), the other being Séan Ó Tuama an Ghrinn. One of his best-known poems, ‘Slán is ceád Ón dtaobh so uaim’ (1738), addressed to Ó Tuama, bids farewell to the locality he has had to leave on account of a sexual indiscretion. Other poems reflect his feelings about the Jacobite rebellion of 1745 [see Jacobite poetry]. Although he and Ó Tuama habitually exchanged verse insults, Mac Craith wrote a glorious elegy for his friend in 1775.