Daniel Corkery (author)

Daniel Corkery (Irish: Dónall Ó Corcora; 14 February 1878 – 31 December 1964) was an Irish politician, writer and academic. He is unquestionably best known as the author of The Hidden Ireland, his 1924 study of the poetry of eighteenth-century Irish Language poets in Munster.

He was born in the city of Cork and educated at the Presentation Brothers and St. Patrick's College of Education, Dublin where he trained as a teacher. He taught at Saint Patrick’s School in Cork but resigned from there in 1921 when he was refused the headmastership (among his students there were the writer Frank O'Connor and the sculptor Seamus Murphy).

After leaving St. Patrick's, Corkery taught art for the local technical education committee, before becoming inspector of Irish in 1925, and later Professor of English at University College Cork in 1930. Among his students in UCC were Seán Ó Faoláin and Seán Ó Tuama. Corkery was often a controversial figure in academia for his 'nativist' views on Irish literature, views which resulted in conflict with many Irish Language scholars, most notably Pádraig de Brún and his niece Máire Mhac an tSaoi. Ó Tuama, however, was frequently a staunch defender of Corkery's reputation.

In his late twenties he learnt Irish and this brought him into contact with leading members of the Irish Language revival movement, including Terence MacSwiney, T. C. Murray and Con O'Leary, with whom he founded the Cork Dramatic Society in 1908. His plays Embers and The Hermit and the King were performed by the society. Later plays were staged at the famous Abbey Theatre, including The Labour Leader (1919) and The Yellow Bittern (1920).

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