John O'Donohue
| John O'Donohue | |
|---|---|
| Born |
1 January 1956 West Ireland |
| Died | 4 January 2008 (aged 52) Avignon, France |
| Resting place | Creggagh Cemetery, near Ballyvaughan |
| Alma mater |
St Patrick's College, Maynooth Eberhard Karls University |
| Occupation | poet, author, priest, philosopher |
| Notable work | Anam Cara (1997) |
John O'Donohue (1 January 1956 – 4 January 2008) was an Irish poet, author, priest, and Hegelian philosopher. He was a native Irish speaker, and as an author is best known for popularising Celtic spirituality.
Eldest of three siblings, he was raised in west Ireland in the area of Connemara and County Clare, where his father Patrick O'Donohue was a stonemason, while his mother Josie O'Donohue was a housewife.
O'Donohue became a novice at Maynooth, in north County Kildare, at age of 18, here he earned degrees in English, Philosophy, and Theology at St Patrick's College in County Kildare. He was ordained as Catholic priest on 6 June 1979. O'Donohue moved to Tübingen, Germany in 1986, and completed his dissertation in 1990 on German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel for his PhD in philosophical theology from Eberhard Karls University. In 1990, he returned to Ireland to continue his priestly duties, and began his post-doctoral work on the 13th century mystic, Meister Eckhart.
O'Donohue's first published work, Anam cara (1997), which means "soul friend" in the Irish language, was an international best-seller and catapulted him into a more public life as an author and much sought-after speaker and teacher, particularly in the United States. O'Donohue left the priesthood in 2000. O'Donohue also devoted his energies to environmental activism, and is credited with helping spearhead the Burren Action Group, which opposed government development plans and ultimately preserved the area of Mullaghmore and the Burren, a karst landscape in County Clare.
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