Peter O'Leary
1839–1920
Biography
Peadar Ua Laoghaire, whom English-speakers call Peter O'Leary, wrote in Irish and worked as a Catholic priest in County Cork. He is counted among those who laid the foundations of modern writing in Irish. Born in 1839 at Liscarrigane, in the parish of Clondrohid, he grew up speaking the Munster Irish of the Muskerry Gaeltacht. He trained at Maynooth, was ordained in 1867, and later served as parish priest in Castlelyons, where he died in 1920 at the age of eighty.
His best-known work is Séadna, which he wrote in Castlelyons and first narrated by the fire for three young girls. Its title character, a shoemaker, makes a bargain with a figure called the Dark Man. Its roots lie in folklore Ua Laoghaire had heard as a boy, but it also resembles the German Faust story. The first instalments went into the Gaelic Journal starting in 1894, and the book reached print in 1904. Many treat it as the leading literary landmark of the Gaelic revival. He also wrote an autobiography, Mo Sgéal Féin, translated medieval Irish stories into modern Irish, and rendered an abridged Don Quixote in the dialect of his own district.
He championed caint na ndaoine, the living speech of ordinary people, and opposed those who wanted to revive older forms of the language. In his view, good usage and poor usage were not equal, and he thought the Irish of Cork the best model for spreading the language among ordinary speakers. The book on this site, Niamh, is listed under his name in the catalogue, and its subject heading places it in fiction about social life and custom in Ireland.
This biography was written by a language model. The sources below are where to check it; treat details with care.
Books
Niamh
by Peter O'Leary
Niamh, daughter of the chieftain Tadhg Mór, comes of age in the years before the Battle of Clontarf in 1014, when Brian Boru is high king and Sitric of Dublin, the Norsemen and the king of Leinster are plotting against him. Her fortunes and those of the young men around her are…
Summary written by Claude Opus 5.5.