Life
1899-1980 [Séamus Ó Duilearga]; b. Cushendall, Co. Antrim,
26 May; son of sea captain, d.1901; moved to Dublin; ed. Castleknock and
UCD, Celtic studies; devoted himself to preserving folklore in his native
Antrim; lect. in lang. and lit., UCD, and prof. of folklore, 1946; co-fnd.
Folklore of Ireland Society in 1925; co-fnd with Pádraig Ó
Siochfhradha ['An Seachac'] its journal Béaloideas, and ed. 1927-73 [forty-six
years; Irish Folklore Commission, 1935; published The Gaelic Storyteller
(1945); Leabhar Sheáin I Chonaill (1948), taken from one
of the last monoglot speakers and storytellers in S. Kerry [and famous
as such DIW], and Seanchas ó’n Oileán Tiar (1956),
a collection made on the Great Blasket by Robin Flower; decorated by governments
of Sweden and Iceland; hon. doctorates from Nova Scotia, Wales, and three
Irish universities; d. 25 June, Dublin. DIB DIW OCIL.
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Works
The Gaelic Storyteller [Sir John Rhys Lecture, 26 Nov. 1945] (1945),
47pp.; ed., Stiofán Ó hEalaoire, Leabhar Stiofán
Ó hEalaoire, corrected by Dáithí Ó hÓgáin
(Dublin 1981).
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Criticism
[?] Seanachaide, ‘Culture Push at UCD, Seamus Delargy on the Irish
Folktale;, in The Leader, LXXXIII, 18 (1941), 421-23.
Arland Ussher, Cursai an tSean Shaoghail, A Ussher do scríobh Ó Sheanchas Thomas Ui Mhuirthe Reamhradh le s Ó Duileargha (Oifig an tSoláthair. 1948), 175pp.; also.
Donnchadh Ó Corráin, ‘Early Ireland: Directions and Re-directions’, in Bullán: An Irish Studies Journal, 1, 2, Autumn 1994, p.1-15; p.1-2..
Irish oral tradition: ‘The nearest European counterpart of the tradition - bearers and reciters of Gaelic heroic literature and international marchen - are the bylini singers and story tellers of Russian. Nowhere else today between Ireland and the Slav countries is there any living and appreciable remnant of the hero-tale and the wonder-tale; certainly nothing in any degree comparable to the tales which are now being collected in Ireland. (The Gaelic Story-teller, with some Notes of Gaelic Folk-tales, 1947, p.6; quoted in Patrick Sheeran, The Novels of Liam O’Flaherty, Dublin: Wolfound 1976, p.47.)
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)