Jeremiah Joseph Callanan (1795–1829) was an Irish poet born in County Cork

County Cork

County Cork is a county in Ireland. It is located in the South-West Region and is also part of the province of Munster. It is named after the city of Cork . Cork County Council is the local authority for the county...

, Ireland

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

.

Callanan studied for Catholic priesthood at Maynooth College

St Patrick's College, Maynooth

St Patrick's College, Maynooth is the "National Seminary for Ireland" , and a Pontifical University, located in the village of Maynooth, 15 miles from Dublin, Ireland. The college and seminary are often referred to as Maynooth College. The college was officially established as the Royal College...

, and afterwards law at Trinity College, Dublin

Trinity College, Dublin

Trinity College, Dublin , formally known as the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, was founded in 1592 by letters patent from Queen Elizabeth I as the "mother of a university", Extracts from Letters Patent of Elizabeth I, 1592: "...we...found and...

, where he won two prizes for his poems. Afterward, he found employment teaching briefly at a school in his hometown of Cork.

Callanan also contributed translations of Irish verse to Blackwood's Magazine

Blackwood's Magazine

Blackwood's Magazine was a British magazine and miscellany printed between 1817 and 1980. It was founded by the publisher William Blackwood and was originally called the Edinburgh Monthly Magazine. The first number appeared in April 1817 under the editorship of Thomas Pringle and James Cleghorn...

before traveling to Lisbon

Lisbon

Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...

to work as a tutor in 1827. Jeremiah Callanan died in Lisbon in 1829, as he was preparing to return to Ireland.

Well-known poems

"The Outlaw of Loch Lene," Callanan's most well-known poem, begins with the line, "O many a day have I made good ale in the glen". It is one of the two Callanan poems included in Brendan Kennelly's The Penguin Book of Irish Verse (1970) the other one being "The Convict of Clonmel". Both are translations from the Irish.

Books of poetry

• Recluse of Inchidony, and other Poems. 1830.
• Poems (ed. M.F. McCarthy). 1847.
• The Poems of J. J. Callanan. A New Edition, with Biographical Introduction and Notes (c) 1992 Chadwyck-Healey