Michael ‘Dan’ O’Shea

(A Bard of Iveragh)

Michael Christopher Joseph O’Shea lived in the corner house at a junction of West Main Street, Cahersiveen. He was known locally as Michael ‘Dan’. There is a plaque in his honour on the side of what was once his house. I had numerous conversations with him outside home about music and song locally and about his own compositions. He told me the first verse he ever wrote was on the gable wall of the old post office. Someone had written ‘Up de Valera’. Under it, in chalk he replied ‘ The man who wrote this penned it well, for the same is written on the gates of hell’. He was a very skilled wordsmith as can be seen in his compositions below.