Seo é an cláirseoir ar mhol triúr file é: Fear Flatha Ó Gnímh (‘A Niocláis, nocht an gcláirsigh’); Piaras Feiritéar (‘Mo-chean d’altrom an oirbheirt’); Maolmhuire Mac an Bhaird (‘Cá síoth don chéol do-chuala’). I gcló ag Osborn Bergin in Irish Bardic Poetry, 1970 tá dán le file ainaithnid a dtugann sé ‘remarkable poem’ air (‘Tiar táinig tús na seanma’); tar éis dó cláirseoirí na miotaseolaíochta a mholadh tugann an file curadhmhír a aimsire féin do Nioclás Dall. Tugann Bergin sliocht as On the Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish, 1873 le Eoghan Ó Comhraí: ‘As to the harp, said county [Ciarraí] could well bragg, having the chiefest master of that instrument in his time, Mr. Nicholas Pierce [sic] of Clonmaurice, not only for his singular capacity of composing lamentations, funerals, additions and elevations, etc., but also by completing said instrument with more wires than ever before his time were used.’ Dúirt Ó Comhraí freisin: ‘Even so late as the seventeenth century, Mr Nicholas Pierce, the great harper of the Co. Kerry, composed or rather revived, some remarkable funeral lamentations, which came down to my own time, and I dare say are still chaunted in regular parts of bass and treble, by the voices of men and women, in concert, at funerals in the South of Ireland.’

Tá cuntas cuimsitheach air ag John H. Pierce in Journal of the Kerry Archaeological and Historical Society, 1973 (‘Nicholas Dall Pierse of Co. Kerry, Harper’). D’éirigh leis an údar sin teacht ar lámhscríbhinn in Oifig na dTaifead Poiblí sa Bhreatain arb é atá ann achainí a rinne Nicholas Pierse, Gent., ar Shéarlas II i 1664. Thug seisean eolas ansiúd ar a sheanathair, Nioclás Dall. Ar Chnoc an Chraoibhín i bparóiste Ráth Tuaidh i dtuaisceart Chiarraí a rugadh é. An bholgach a bhain radharc na súl de agus é ina naíonán. Bhí gaol aige le muintir Mhic Mhuiris Lic Snámha, tiarnaí Chiarraí. Cé nach raibh aon bhaint aige le haon éiri amach bhí drochamhras ar chláirseoiri i gcoítinne agus b’fhéidir gurbh é sin an fáth ar coigistíodh an talamh a bhí aige. I bhfad roimhe sin, i 1601, tugadh pardún na banríona dó. Bhí sé pósta ar Chaitlín Pierse, iníon le ‘ceann fine’ na bPiarsach. Is léir ar líon na dtagairtí dó sna taifid go raibh meas duine uasail ag na húdaráis air: bhí sé ar dhuine díobh sin a chuir a n-ainmneacha le hachainí ar an Róimh i 1631 Doiminic Ó Dálaigh (1595–1662) a cheapadh ina easpag ar Ard Fhearta. Pléann Pierce na feabhsuithe a deirtear a chuir sé ar an gcláirseach a sheinntí in Éirinn.

Diarmuid Breathnach

Máire Ní Mhurchú