I vote for Turlough O'Carolan, Ireland's unofficial national composer. The blind Irish harpist travelled the country composing and performing during the Baroque period.
In 1691, a poor, blind, twenty-one year old son of a blacksmith and his guide set out on a journey from a backwater estate, Alderford, near the town of Balyfarnon, County Roscommon, hoping to make a living as an itinerant harper. He seemed an unlikely figure to leave a lasting stamp on Ireland’s...
www.irishamerica.com
"Born in 1670 on a farm in Nobber, County Meath, at a time when Ireland was still suffering the reverberations of Oliver Cromwell’s “To Hell or Connaught” land confiscations, the family moved, first to Carrig-on-Shannon in County Leitrim, and then, in 1684, to Ballyfarnon, a village in what is now Northern Roscommon. His father, Hugh, found employment on the estate of the McDermott Roes, a leading Irish family of the old Gaelic order who, despite being Catholic, had managed to retain substantial landholding...At 18, O’Carolan was stricken with smallpox and nearly died. He survived, but the disease left him permanently blind."
O'Carolan's Concerto