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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. There's a consensus in favor of deletion here, but only a weak one. Closing as delete because relisting is unlikely to be productive. Please see WP:DELREV if you're able to find additional independent sources. ST47 (talk) 01:19, 24 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Cormac Ó Comáin

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Cormac Ó Comáin (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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Contested PROD. Content was "Hagiographic article, the few sources either aren't RS or don't actually seem to mention the subject, and nothing to support the grandiose claims here." Contrary to the de-PROD reason I did not cite the purported age, though that further adds to the absurdity of this article; Wikipedia should not uncritically parrot ridiculous claims. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 02:31, 1 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Ireland-related deletion discussions. 94rain Talk 03:20, 1 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Poetry-related deletion discussions. 94rain Talk 03:20, 1 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Actually (I having just compared the article against the source), Walker supports everything here except the age at death, the subject being still alive when Walker wrote about xem. The problem is that there is exactly one source for this. All of the books that supposedly document this … are actually reprints of, simple and obvious plagiarism of, or outright cite as their one source, Walker's article. And The Blade of the Northern Lights is not the first to complain about this. The editor of the Ulster Journal of Archaeology (1907, p.53) wrote in a prefix to yet another copy of Walker's biographical memoir that

    [This account of Cormac Dall is written in the usual fulsome, and often objectionable, tone of the period, which I have not hesitated to alter and amend. — Ed.]

    The problem is that this source is not very good, relating things from other unidentified people ("I have been assured that") and blaming someone named Ralph Ousley for the rest. It really does seem that this is a bunch of hearsay and non-factual opinion, that Wikipedia editors have bravely but in vain tried to neutralize in much the same way as the UJA editor did, and that no historian in over two centuries has produced another separate and independent account with everyone parrotting Walker wholesale. It does not seem very safe to base an article on a single, quite bad, source. I am strongly in favour of multiple independent sources. Uncle G (talk) 13:15, 1 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions. Tyw7 (🗣️ Talk) — If (reply) then (ping me) 01:34, 2 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Transportation-related deletion discussions. Tyw7 (🗣️ Talk) — If (reply) then (ping me) 01:34, 2 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Ireland-related deletion discussions. Tyw7 (🗣️ Talk) — If (reply) then (ping me) 01:34, 2 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete This article fails WP:GNG because the one source in the article is a book of dubious reliability and other independent reliable sources could not be found, as all other writings on the subject are mere copies of the Walker book. Newshunter12 (talk) 12:52, 2 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hagiography or not, O'Halloran, Clare (1989). "Irish Re-Creations of the Gaelic Past: The Challenge of Macpherson's Ossian". Past & Present. 124: 69–95. seems pretty positive about Walker and his skepticism toward "dubious" material. Drmies (talk) 00:59, 3 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Walker's own research is one thing. But this is material given to him (as Walker explicitly notes ahead of the memoir) by Ralph Ousley, who I believe to be (but Walker does not say) the Ralph Ouseley (1739) that you might have heard of. (Although Walker says "Ralph Ousley", that is a known alternative spelling, and the illustration is credited to one "William Ousley" whom I believe to be, but again without support from Walker, William Ouseley Ralph's son.) The editorial criticism of the source that I mentioned before comes from Francis Joseph Bigger, whom you also may have heard of. Bigger is himself regarded as a purveyor of purple prose by serious standards (see Clements 2007 in the AFC submission), and anything that Bigger regards as "fulsome and objectionable" is bad indeed, and way below modern standards for serious historical scholarship. Uncle G (talk) 02:24, 9 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Don’t we have many notable historical figures for which their true RS aggregates back to one source historical account that may or may not be fully true? I also think that for historical figures, it becomes less about pure WP:GNG, and includes aspects of WP:PRESERVE, as sources, for even unambiguously worthy historical subjects, can be thin. My question therefore is whether this subject is "inherently notable", and thus worthy of PRESERVE (notwithstanding the need for the article to clarify the issues of sourcing; which are also helpful to readers)? Britishfinance (talk) 12:01, 8 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • In this case it goes back to one source which hasn't gotten a lot of attention and which, of the few other historians who have studied it, most of them agree is wildly unreliable. There's nothing here which can even remotely be verified by modern standards. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 14:28, 8 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • So are we saying that mention in the book aside, this subject would never have really been "inherently notable" – E.g. he was an unremarkable artist. My check is whether he was historically "inherently notable", but his sources are thin/suspect? thanks. Britishfinance (talk) 15:43, 8 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Actually, we largely do not. For must such subjects, there is at least an identified historian who has done the legwork, even if said legwork results in the historian publishing "I can find birth and death records, and everything else that we know of the subject comes from W.". In this case we do not even know who "Ralph Ousley" and "William Ousley" are. Walker does not say, and it is my educated guess that these are Ralph Ouseley (1739) and William Ouseley. (Drmies now understands why the Limericks.) But we do not even have a historian confirming that. There's the original hearsay, lots of re-hashes and outright plagiarism of the original hearsay that tail off into the start of the 20th century, a note from Francis Joseph Bigger that this is too poor by his standards, and nothing else; no historian doing any sort of legwork at all. And that's the problem. We cannot put in my guesses about the Ouseleys, nor yours or any other Wikipedia editor's, and there's simply no good historical scholarship on this matter to work from. Uncle G (talk) 02:24, 9 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Sandstein 21:37, 8 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I suggest to consider that he's mentioned (as Cormac Dall) by others beside Walker ([1], [2],[3]), as well as in "an eighteenth-century paper manuscript containing drafts of short biographies" and in this in one from 1746, predating Walker's publication. He also has an entry in this British Musical Biography(1897). Between legend and reality, he seems to have established himself. Homer may well never have existed either. 188.218.87.79 (talk) 17:09, 9 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • By the way, contrary to what is written in the article, his "Lament for John Burke of Carrentryle" is actually reported on page 58 of [4]. 188.218.87.79 (talk) 17:41, 9 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • You make my point for me. You've just pointed to:
      • two outright copies of Walker, the Sedley one crediting Walker's historical memoirs in a footnote and more heavily edited than the Conran one that does not and is largely word-for-word except for the usual editorial exchanges ("simple and honest" and "poor and honest" for example);
      • a short story work of fiction in a "Ladies' Magazine", not history by a historian at all, that contains nothing except the subject's name in a footnote;
      • a manuscript description that far from pre-dating Walker as you claim, has the statement "ultimately derives from Walker’s Historical memoirs of the Irish bards." for the part about Cormac at the top of the page, a historian pointing out what I am pointing out;
      • even worse, a listing of an actual manuscript of these appendices to Walker's Historical memoirs of the Irish bards in a library catalogue (observe the titles, for starters!).
    • That leaves the 3-sentence British Musical Biography entry, which we can tell is not based upon a historian doing the legwork but yet again on Walker because it contains the wishy-washy claim that the subject must have "died about the end of the 18th century, or at least after 1786", this deduction clearly made because he was apparently alive when Walker's Historical memoirs of the Irish bards came out. (In reality, he was alive when Ralph Ousley told Walker, whenever that was. Walker does not say.) In Wikipedia "about the end of the 18th century" would have a {{when}} against it in short order, and might well be outright removed for being uninformative tripe telling the reader the blindingly obvious that the subject must have died at some point. The British Musical Biography compilers did to Walker's (Ousley's) account what Wikipedia editors tried to, and ended up with largely nothing.

      Thank you for at least not doing the usual handwave in the direction of Google Books, but for this AFD discussion the bar is raised a lot higher. You actually have to read the sources and check that they aren't yet more re-hashes and plagiarism of Walker, and find one that contains the result of actual legwork done by a historian. More plagiarism of Walker's hearsay, re-hashes of it, or outright identified derivatives of it, with historians and editors making the same points as I am, are not nearly enough.

      Uncle G (talk) 18:17, 9 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your reply. a) The first three references are indeed inspired or derived from Walker, but this means that Cormac was widely known. You do not appear in a Ladies' Magazine tale if no one knows who you are. b) Cormac is mentioned in Manuscript MS 12 B 20 , while the reference to Walker is in Manuscript 24 O 22 of the Forde-Pigot Collection. c) I still fail to see how "[42]. ‘Marbhnaoi Sheáin de Búrc cheathramhadh an Tríaill c. na Gaillbhe, le Cormac dall o Comáin (1746)" (that's the Carrentryle ode in Gaelic) could be derived from Walker, who was born in 1760, fourteen years later. Perhaps the date is spurious, but that's a supposition. d) The Carrentryle ode is translated in its entirety by Charlotte Brooke in her book "Maon". This confirms Cormac's fame. The Carrentryle ode was clearly famous and it is still there, in Gaelic and in English. Someone must have written it. Mind, whether Cormac really existed is beside the point. What I am saying is that his literary personality, real or legendary, is established. 188.218.87.79 (talk) 19:44, 9 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Here is a 2015 reference to Brooke's translation of Cormac Common's poetry. A curious reader may come to Wikipedia to learn more. After this AfD he may well find NOTHING. 188.218.87.79 (talk) 21:08, 9 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Ditto. 188.218.87.79 (talk) 21:18, 9 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
None of which addresses the problems Uncle G laid out above, namely that it's all variations on a single source. Wikipedia needs more than one source for an article on someone. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 12:47, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: Lots of "comments". How about some !votes?
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Randykitty (talk) 16:03, 16 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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