no new political dream had come." Merriman married around 1787 and had two daughters. In 1797, the Royal Dublin Society awarded him two prizes for his flax crop. Around 1800 he moved to Limerick City. According to the oral tradition, Merriman moved his family because he feared that his prosperous farm in Feakle might cause local men to abduct his two beautiful daughters and force them into marriage. In Limerick, Merriman continued to teach. Brian Merriman died on Saturday 27 July 1805. His death was recorded two days later in the General Advertiser and Limerick Gazette: "Died – on Saturday morning, in Old Clare-street, after a few days' illness, Mr Bryan Merryman, teacher of Mathematics, etc." Frank O'Connor has alleged, incorrectly, that "Irish literature in the Irish language may be said to have died with him." Yeats, on the other hand, wrote, "Standish Hayes O'Grady has described The Midnight Court as the best poem written in Gaelic, and as I read Mr. Ussher's translation I have felt, without sharing what seems to me an extravagant opinion, that Mac Giolla Meidhre, had political circumstances been different, might have founded a modern Gaelic literature." Brian Merriman lies buried in Feakle graveyard. Cúirt an Mheán Oíche In the opening section of the poem, the poet declares his love for walking alone in the countryside of County Clare, which he describes lyrically. After walking past a red fox being pursued by hunters on horseback, the poet walks to the shore of Loch Gréine and lays down to take a nap in a ditch. Then, a hideous giantess appears, who carries a staff to which a bailiff's warrant has been nailed. The giantess wakes up the poet, scolds him for sleeping in a ditch while court is in session, and drags him kicking and screaming into the presence of Aoibheal, the Queen of all the Fairies in County Clare. On the way to the ruined church at Moynoe, the giantess explains that the Queen is disgusted by the destruction of the clan system, the Flight of the Wild Geese, the exile or outlawry of the Clan Chiefs, and their replacement by lowborn but greedy Protestant and Anglo-Irish landlords, "who pick the bones of the Irish clean." Furthermore, the Queen is also horrified by how the judges invariably twist English Law to always support the new Protestant Ascendancy. The giantess further explains that Aoibheal is even