THE MAGAURAN (MCGOVERN) DUANAIRE

The family of Magauran (Mac Samhradhain) were the chieftains of the mountainous district of Teallach Eathach, now the barony of Tullyhaw in the west of County Cavan.

From the early 13th century references to members of the family occur in the various Irish annals. 

A geneology of the family was compiled by Cu Coigriche 0 Cleirigh about the year 1650. 

The Magauran Duanaire is a vellum manuscript, belonging to the middle of the fourteenth century, and contains a very full account of the family and its possessions and of the manners and customs of Teallach Eathach. (Teallach, anglicized as Tullyhaw, was the name of the tribe of Magauran forebears.) 

The manuscript, which contains fifty-four pages of Irish materials, chiefly Bardic poetry, is one of the earliest books of family poems in the Irish language now in existence. 

The scribe who wrote it was one Ruaidhri 0 Cianan. . Rory O'Keenan would be the modern form of his name.. who compiled the duanaire for Thomas Magauran, chieftain of Teallach Eatach. This Thomas Magauran died in 1343 which establishes the later limit for the date of the manuscript. 

The death of Rory O'Keenan is entered as 1387 in the Irish Annals. The Four Masters refer to him as a learned historian and bard of Oirghialla. The evidence suggests that the Duanaire was compiled between the years 1339 and 1343. 

The principal residence of the Magaurans was at Lissanover in the parish of Templeport. Evidently the bardic tradition was there well maintained and it is most probable that a Bardic School presided over by Rory O'Keenan was then in existence.  Further evidence of this will be found later on. The Duanaire may be accepted as positive evidence of the high literary standards maintained in the schools of Teallach Eathach in the 14th century. 

The existing Duanaire is only a fragment of a larger manuscript. It is much faded and in parts scarcely legible. 

The description of it by the late Sir J. T. Gilbert is as follows: 

"The MS is in the Irish language, on Vellum, fifty-four pages folio, in double columns, imperfect at beginning and end. The penmanship is excellent but the Vellum is dark and defaced in some places. From a note on the first page, we learn that this book was transcribed by Adam O'Cianan for Thomas, son of Brian Mac Samhradhain, apparently the chief of the territory of Teallach Eachdhach, in the northwest of the present County Cavan, whose death is chronicled by the Four Masters under the year 1343."

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