An tAthair Lorcán Ó Muirí (Fr Laurence Murray, 1883-1941) managed to cram a great deal of Irish-language scholarship into a busy clerical life which began rather badly. He was ‘asked to leave’ Maynooth seminary around 1904 for what one gathers was ardent political activity and had to ship out to Minnesota to get ordained six years later. When the first Irish summer college, Coláiste Bhríde, was set up in Omeath in 1912 he returned every summer to teach there, eventually returning to become religious inspector of schools in Armagh Archdiocese – he was remembered in South Armagh as a colourful figure, a priest on a motorbike. In 1926 as the Omeath Gaeltacht declined he moved the college operations to Rannafast in Donegal where the college still thrives. Along the way he founded the Gaelic publication An tUltach, wrote a short history of Omeath and undertook some very substantial work in music and song collection. Perhaps his most outstanding work was his research on the life, poetry and songs of the poet-highwayman Séamas Mór MacMurphy who was hanged in Armagh in the 1750s following his capture in a shebeen near the Flagstaff. Lorcán Ó Muirí was born in Newry Street, Carlingford.
