Michael Luke Pháidín ‘Michael Coyne’

Michael Coyne, the poet, was born, in Cloghbrack Upper in 1882, son of Luke Coyne and Sarah ‘Sally’ Diskin. He went to school to third class in an English only school as Ireland was still under British rule. He took the emigrant ship to Scranton, Pennsylvania to work in the depths of the coal mines there. He returned hoping for some support to progress his learning and scholarship but when it wasn’t forthcoming he left again this time for Pittsburgh, mining coal in the bowels of the earth. Michael never returned to Ireland. Before he emigrated, while still a young man he composed more than 20 poems on the themes of love, loss, emigration, the social life of Cloghbrack and the Irish language. It is believed he composed more poems in Pittsburgh but none are known to survive. He died in September 1916 and was buried in Calvary cemetery in an indigent plot. He was described by Professor Tomás Ó Máille in his 1934 book Micheál Mhac Suibhne agus Filidh an tSléibhe ‘

‘He was like a bright ray of sunshine on the mountain, which lasts for a short while. While it doesn’t last long, it lifts the hearts of the people while it’s there. It’s like the call of the cuckoo in spring which arrives with stealth and lifts the cloud of sadness and sorrow from people’s hearts. He was like a bright attractive flower of the Irish language who didn’t manage to mature to his full potential and achieve his rightful success....

This is a collection of 23 poems in Irish with English translations for each of the poems and extensive narrative describing the people and the places referenced in the poems. Twelve of the poems were previously unpublished and believed lost.

It is illustrated with images of manuscript pages from the hand written notes of Professor

Tomás Ó Máille and copies of transcriptions from the Dúchas, National Folklore Collection. It is 280 pages, stitched and glued for durability, paperback with French flaps.

Martin O’Halloran is from Allenstown, County Meath, the son of a migrant family who were resettled there in 1940 by The Irish Land Commission. Irish was the first language of the household. He was Chief Executive of the Health and Safety Authority, a senior executive in the telecommunications sector and a company director. He is President of the Institute of Public Administration and a Teaching Fellow at University of Limerick. He was educated at the Vocational School Navan, Trinity College Dublin, Universities of London, Surrey, Strathclyde and Harvard. This is his second book. The Lost Gaeltacht which won an award at Listowel Writers Week was published in March 2020.