Seán Ó Ríordáin
Seán Pádraig Ó Ríordáin (3 December 1916 – 21 February 1977) was an Irish language poet[1].
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[edit] Life
He was born in Baile Mhúirne, County Cork,[2] the eldest of three children of Seán Ó Ríordáin[3] of Baile Mhúirne and Mairéad Ní Loineacháin[3] of Cúil Ealta.
English was his first language. His mother spoke English; his father spoke Irish and English. His father's mother, a native Irish speaker, lived next door. His next-door neighbor on the other side also spoke Irish. It wasn't long before Ó Ríordáin gained some knowledge of Irish.
Seán was only ten when his father died of tuberculosis. Five years later, the family moved to Iniscarra, on the outskirts of Cork City.[2] After settling there, Seán and his brother Tadhg were sent to school in the North Monastery Christian Brothers school, on Cork's northside.[2] When he was a young man he was diagnosed with tuberculosis. He lived to the age of sixty and was constantly in poor health.
[edit] Poet
Ó Ríordáin published four books: Eireaball Spideoige (A Robin's Tail) (Sáirséal Ó Marcaigh 1952, 1986), a volume of some hundred pages, and three subsequent booklets, Brosna (Kindling) (1964), Línte Liombó (Limbo Lines) (1971), and the posthumous Tar éis mo Bháis (After my Death).[4]
The title of his first collection is borrowed from the first line of the final verse of Ó Ríordáin's more celebrated poem. A new frisson was created in Irish language poetry when this poem, Adhlacadh Mo Mháthar (My Mother's Burial), was first published in 1945. It celebrates the innocence, devoutness, and motherliness of the poet's dead mother.
[edit] Interpretation
Ó Ríordáin delineates his personal aesthetic and theology in the preface to his first collection of poetry, Eireaball Spideoige (A Robin’s Tail) (1952), in which he highlights the relationship between artistic expression, poetry in particular, and being. He argues that poetry is to be under the aspect of another and without that relationship one can only ever produce a prosaic narrative. In that same preface, Ó Ríordáin considers an appropriation of an infant's mind as a prerequisite for the poetic act. The poem An Peaca (The Sin) reveals that Ó Ríordáin's ability to write poetry is at once lost if his immediate relation to nature is interrupted.
Ó Ríordáin has been described as a European poet. As well as writing poetry, he wrote a column in The Irish Times during the latter years of his life in which he spoke vehemently about national affairs. A number of his poems have appeared in English translation, for example, Modern Irish Poetry: An Anthology (ed. Patrick Crotty).[4]
[edit] References
- ^ Much of the material here is drawn from a TG4 2007 documentary, Cuid 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tt5TkGSOv4, Cuid 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sDwZZSxBKA, Cuid 3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRCa3F5KNf8 directed by Traolach O Buachalla
- ^ a b c "Seán Ó Ríordáin". The Concise Oxford Companion to Irish Literature. Oxford University Press. 1996, 2000, 2003. http://www.answers.com/topic/se-n-r-ord-in. Retrieved 22 Jul. 2010.
- ^ a b "Seán Ó Riordáin Papers". University College Dublin. http://www.ucd.ie/library/special_collections/archives/modern_lit/oriordain.html. Retrieved 22 Jul. 2010.
- ^ a b Boylan, Henry (1998). A Dictionary of Irish Biography, 3rd Edition. Dublin: Gill and MacMillan. p. 350. ISBN 0-7171-2945-4.
[edit] Bibliography
TG4 2007 documentary Cuid 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tt5TkGSOv4, Cuid 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sDwZZSxBKA, Cuid 3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRCa3F5KNf8
