Donncha rua mc Namara was a famous jacobite gaelic poet of waterford, born in cratloe co Clare in 1715. as a young teenager During the penal times he was snuck off to France to the priesthood but was expelled never finishing his studies. After exiling around Europe he returned to Ireland and became a hedge school master secretly wondering Ireland teaching which the people called the fate of the spolit priest. but He was described by Canon power as a wayward, wandering son of genius. he was appointed assistant master at the famous classical school at Seskinane, Touraneena, Co. Waterford, in 1741 which had opened its doors in the relaxation of penal times. and he taught there for many years. He attended court of poetry held by Piarais Mac Gearailt in Cork, 1743 He was a happy-go-lucky, reckless individual and great gaelic poet who was always welcome to wedding or christening, where he wrote and sang poems and songs and joked, singing the praises of some and satirising others with all the acerbic wit of a gaelic poet. Mac Con Mara's escapades, poems and songs were part of the folklore in County Waterford but died with the Irish language. while attempting to travel a second time to Newfoundland he wrote in MS Eachtra Giolla an Amaráin [The Adventure of a Luckless Fellow], alias “The Mock Aeneid”; though he never actually managed to arrive. he arrived in Waterford, from which port he was due to sail but, instead of boarding his ship, he commenced to make merry in some local tavern until his passage money was exhausted. After this he sold his supply of foodstuffs and, having accounted in like manner with the proceeds of the sale, he faced back again to the parish of Newcastle. To the queries put to him he replied, jocosely, that he had been to Newfoundland and, a short time afterwards, he wrote the poem consisting of 360 verses in which he described his voyage as how the ship was attacked by a French frigate and a fight ensues in which our poet is the hero. The emigrant ship is captured but, through the strategy of Donnchadh the frigate is overpowered and the emigrant ship returns in safety once more to Waterford. The tale is told of a handsome young lady who was satirised in a poem by Donnchadh. She retaliated by burning down the school where the poet-scholar taught. Following the burning the poet moved on to the parish of Newcastle, near Kilmeaden on the outskirts of the city, where he set up school once more and taught there himself for some years. He travelled far and wide in the county.

he became a member of the Church of Ireland in Rossmire, Newtown near Kilmacthomas. He was appointed church clerk but when the Church of Ireland clergy, and people, discovered how great a rogue was their new convert, he was dismissed, so he crawled back to Catholicism once more.n 1810, at the age of 95, he died in Newtown, where he had been a temporary Protestant and is buried in the Catholic cemetery there. The inscription over his grave in Latin gives the necessary details and also at the end of the text: 'If whatever sins he committed have been wiped out by penance, give him, oh Lord eternal rest in the true motherland

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