Seán Ó Ríordáin
| Seán Ó Ríordáin | |
|---|---|
| Native name | Seán Pádraig Ó Ríordáin |
| Born |
3 December 1916 Baile Mhúirne, County Cork, Ireland |
| Died | 21 February 1977 (aged 60) Glanmire, County Cork, Ireland |
| Occupation | poet, writer |
| Notable works | Eireaball Spideoige |
Seán Pádraig Ó Ríordáin (3 December 1916 – 21 February 1977) was one of the most important Irish language poets of the twentieth century and arguably the most significant figure in introducing European themes into traditional poetry.
He was born in Baile Mhúirne, County Cork, the eldest of three children of Seán Ó Ríordáin of Baile Mhúirne and Mairéad Ní Loineacháin 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 neighbour 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 Inniscarra, on the outskirts of Cork city. After settling there, Seán and his brother Tadhg were sent to school in the North Monastery Christian Brothers School, on Cork's northside. When he was a young man he was diagnosed with tuberculosis. He lived to the age of sixty and was constantly in poor health.
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] (Sáirséal agus Dill 1964), Línte Liombó [Limbo Lines] (Sáirséal agus Dill 1971), and the posthumous Tar éis mo Bháis [After my Death] (Sáirséal agus Dill, 1978) .
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.
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.
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