Ó Míodhcháin (Ó Míocháin), Tomás (Meehan, Thomas) (c.1730–1804), poet, was the second son of John Meehan, farmer, of Ardsollus, about 8 km south-east of Ennis, Co. Clare. Ó Míodhcháin, who described himself as a mathematician, received a good education – probably at a school in Limerick city. He travelled during the 1760s, spending some time in Limerick and working as a land surveyor at Milltown Malbay in west Clare. About 1770 he settled in Ennis, where he established a ‘mathematical school’ for older pupils: advertisements for the school stressed such practical subjects as arithmetic, accounting, and geography.
Ó Míodhcháin's interest in poetry may have been stimulated by contact with a literary circle in Limerick city, one of whose members was John Lloyd (qv). About 1760 he composed a poem to welcome Pádraig Ó Conaill, a friend of Seán Ó Tuama (qv), to Milltown Malbay; another early work (“Is subhach linn an scéal do léitear le fírinn’’) addressed to John Lloyd coincided with Spain's entry into the Seven Years War (1762); and a few years later he regretted a decision by Tadhg Gaelach Ó Súilleabháin (qv) to turn his back on secular verse, in the poem beginning ‘Is lúfar, lánghlic, léadmhar’. When bailiffs acting for Ennis corporation distrained some of Ó Míodhcháin's books for non-payment of rates in September 1773, their action was condemned in a barántas (mock warrant) by Pádraig Mac Giobúin – an indication of the status he already enjoyed among his peers.
Much of Ó Míodhcháin's work dealt with political themes. In 1776 he celebrated the British evacuation of Boston in the song beginning ‘A ghéaga cumainn na nGael gcumais’. The song beginning ‘A uaisle Inis Éilge de chnuascheap na nGael’ urged a popular uprising and was probably composed at the time of a threatened Franco–Spanish invasion in 1779. ‘A ghasra grámhar, gáireach, greannmhar’ praised the attitude of the Volunteers and the parliamentary opposition during the agitation for free trade in late 1779. The views expressed by Ó Míodhcháin in English were considerably more prudent. When John Lloyd's Tour of Clare was published in 1780, it contained a dedicatory poem by Ó Míodhcháin, as well as two poems in which he praised Marcus Paterson (d. 1787), a lord chief justice who helped to found a school at Ennis, and Sir Lucius O'Brien (qv), MP for Co. Clare. These works dated from 1774 and 1776 respectively. An Irish poem in praise of Sylvester O'Halloran (qv) may have been prompted by the appearance of Ierne defended (1774). Ó Míodhcháin convened and drafted the rules for a ‘court’ of poetry which met in Ennis on 1 April 1780. John Lloyd was also involved in the project, but it is unclear how many other poets attended and the body may have had a short existence. Subsequent compositions by Ó Míodhcháin include a song (‘A ghéagaibh gníomha Choinn is Eoghain’) celebrating Britain's defeat (1781) in the American war, and another denouncing the fencible regiments which were raised in 1782. His last datable work was written in 1784 and his subsequent silence may not be unrelated to the death (c.1786) of his friend John Lloyd.
Tomás Ó Míodhcháin never married and continued to teach till the end of his life. He died at Ardsollus on 9 December 1804 and was buried in the family plot at Quin friary. A handful of poems by his brothers Domhnall and Seán are also extant.
More information on this entry is available at the National Database of Irish-language biographies (Ainm.ie).