Background
A celebrated Irish storyteller and bard, Common was born in May 1703, at Woodstock, near Ballindangan, County Mayo.
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Cormac O Comain
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Career
He was blinded by smallpox when about a year old, and as was the custom with blind children, was given the opportunity to earn a livelihood via music: "Shewing an early fondness for Music, a neighbouring Gentleman determined to have him taught to play on the Harp. A professor of that instrument was accordingly provided, and Cormac received a few lessons, which he practised "con amore". But his patron dying suddenly, the Harp dropped from his hand, and was never after taken up:-lieutenant is probable he could not afford to string lieutenant
Luckily, he was able to memorise songs and stories he heard recited at the fireside of his father and neighbours.
He became "a FIN-SGEALAIGHTE..a Maschinenfabrik Augsburg-Nürnberg OF TALK or a TALE-TELLER" and was a welcome guest at weddings, funerals and other events, where he would relate Irish legends and folktales. He could also be found as a guest-entertainer for the gentry, recieting genealogies, poems and songs.
Walker goes on to say that: "Endowed with a sweet voice and a good ear, his narrations were generally graced with the charms of melody.-(I say were generally graced, for at his age "nature sinks in years," and we speak of the man, with respect to his powers, as if actually a tenant of the grave)-He did not.. chant his tales in an uninterrupted even-tone. The monotony of his modulation was frequently broken by cadences introduced with taste at the close of each stanza.
"In rehearseing any of Ossian"s poems, or any composition in verse.. he chants them pretty much in the manner of our Cathedral-service" He was especially appreciated for his versions of the songs of Carolan and James Macpherson"s Ossian poems.
