Life
1890-1951; [born Blackham; adopted name, Aodh Sandrach de Blácam; var.
de Blacam; occas. pseud. “Roddy the Rover”], b. London,
son of W. G. Blackham, MP for Newry, Co. Down; joined London Gaelic League,
learned Irish from Robert Lynd in London; moved to Ireland in 1915 as
journalist with The Enniscorthy Echo; converted to Catholicism
and cultivated a utopian Catholic-nationalist outlook, lending vocal support
to Franco’s Spain in the 1930s; Sinn Féin propagandist imprisoned
during War of Independence; issued Towards the Republic: A Study of
New Ireland’s Social and Political Aims (1918); issued
Holy Romans (1920), a bildungsroman in which Shane Lambert converts
to nationalism and Catholicism, while the gombeen-man and parish priest
combine for personal gain; published Gaelic Literature Surveyed
(1929), A First Book of Irish Literature (1934), and other critical
and editorial works; Irish Times staff [but see under Gray, infra];
contrib. to Irish Press for 20 years, using his occasional pseudonym;
wrote column in Catholic The Irish Monthly, his articles including
a denunciation of Yeats’s un-Irish credentials (March 1939); ed.
Irish Commonwealth; Towards the Republic (Sinn Fein manifesto
dedicated to memory of James Connolly); Fianna Fail executive up to 1947,
when he joined Clann na Poblachta; defeated in Co. Louth, 1948 elections;
member of emigration commission and later Director of Publicity of the
Department of Health. IF2 DIW DIB FDA DUB OCIL
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Works
Commentary, Towards the Republic:A Study of New Ireland’s
Social and Political Aims (Dublin [q.pub.] 1918), 2nd ed.,
(Dublin: Thomas Kiersey 1919), ed. rev., xiv+110pp.; From a Gaelic
Outpost (Dublin: CTS 1921) [infra]; Gaelic
Literature Surveyed (Dublin: Talbot 1929); Do., reissued
with add. chap. by Eoghan Ó hAnluain [‘The Twentieth Century,
Prose and Verse’, pp.387-405] (Dublin: Talbot 1973); What Sinn
Fein Stands For: The Irish Republican Movement, its history, aims and
ideals examined as to their significance for the world (Dublin: Mellifont
Press (1921), 23pp.; A First Book of Irish Literature (Dublin:
Talbot 1934; rep. Kennikat 1970) [infra]; Gentle
Ireland: An Account of a Christian Culture in History and Modern Life
(Milwaukee: Bruce Publ. Co. 1935); The Black North: An Account
of the Six Counties of Unrecovered Ireland, foreword by Eamon de Valera
(MH Gill & Son 1938) [another edn. 1942, ills.];
Fiction, The Ship that Sailed too Soon, and Other Tales (Dublin: Maunsel 1919); Holy Romans: A Young Irishman’s Story (Dublin: Maunsel 1920); The Druid’s Cave: a Tale of Mystery and Adventure for Young People of Seven to Seventy (Dublin: Whelan 1921); Tales of the Gaels (Dublin: Mellifont Press 1921), ill. Austin Molloy; Patsy the Codologist (Dublin: Mellifont 1922), ill. George Monks, 123pp; The Lady of the Cromlech (London: John Murray 1930); [pseud. “Roddy”,] Roddy the Rover and His Aunt Louisa (Dublin: Browne & Nolan MCMXXXII [1932]), 158pp. [ded. to David Hogan].
Biography, A Life Story of Wolfe Tone (Dublin: Talbot 1935); St. Patrick the Apostle (Milwaukee 1941); also The Story of Colmcille (1929); Golden Priest: An Imaginary Scene in the Life of Blessed Oliver Plunket [pamphlet 1940], 20pp.
Poetry, Dornán Dán, Aodh Sandrach de Blácam do chum (Dublin: Talbot 1917) and Songs and Satires ([n.p.] 1920); Old Wine, Verses from the Irish, Spanish ... Done Chiefly in Irish Metres (Dublin: Three Candles [1920], 35pp.
Drama, Dhá Ríogacht [Two Kingdoms], dráma aon mhíre, trans. an t-Ath Seosamh Ua Moailáin (Oifig an tSoláthair 1944), 23pp.; Ambassador of Christ: A three-act Drama of Saint Patrick [...] (Dublin: M. H. Gill & Son 1945), xi, 90pp. [BML].
Miscellaneous, ‘Gaelic and Anglo-Irish Literature Compared’, in Studies (March 1924); ‘Who Now Reads Scott?’, in The Irish Monthly, 65 (1937), pp.486-99; ‘Two Poets Who Discovered their Country’, in Irish Monthly 74 (1946), 357-65 [Furlong and A.N.Other]; ‘How Our Forbears lived, books about the land’, in Irish Monthly, LXXV (1947), pp.383-87; also ‘The World of Letters: Poison in Wells’, in Irish Monthly, Vol. 65 [q.d], p.280.
A First Book of Irish Literature: Hiberno-Latin - Gaelic- Anglo-Irish from the Earliest Times to the Present Day (Talbot Press [1934]), 236pp, with index.
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Criticism
James Cahalan, Great Hatred, Little Room, The Irish Historical
Novel (1983).
A. N. Jeffares, W B Yeats, A New Biography (London: Macmillan 1988), p.314.
R. F. Foster, ‘When the Newspapers Have Forgotten Me ...’, in Yeats Annual 12 (1996), for Corkery's long denunciation of Yeats.
Luke Gibbons, Transformations in Irish Culture (Cork UP 1996), p.97.
Studies (Vol. XXIII, No. 91, 1924), critiquing Corkery’s Hidden Ireland (1924).
Joep Leerssen, Mere Irish & Fíor-ghael, 1986, and characterised there as ‘an unfortunate anachronism’, p.169.
Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing, gen. ed., Seamus Deane, Vol. 2, 1991, p.955.
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Notes
Desmond Clarke, Ireland in Fiction [Pt II] (Cork: Royal
Carbery 1985), calls him editor of Irish Press, where he wrote
under pseud. ‘Roddy the Rover’; lists The Ship that Sailed
too Soon, and Other Tales (Maunsel 1919), 150pp. [18 stories,
the first a historical fantasy dealing with O’Donnell’s ship
from Corunna to free Ireland]; Holy Romans (Maunsel 1920), 390pp.
[semi-autobiographical novel of Ulster Protestant raised in London who
converts to Irish nationalism and Catholicism]; The Druid’s Cave
(Dublin: Whelan 1921), 159pp. [adventure for young people; characters
are Conall Mor and Fionn Mac Cumhail, while an English journalist, Horatio
Topperly, is made the butt of jibes against the English]; Tales of
the Gaels, ill. Austin Molloy (Dublin: Mellifont Press 1921), 119pp.
[stories of Finn and the Fianna]; Patsy the Codologist (Dublin:
Mellifont 1922), ill. George Monks, 123pp. [7 tales for young people from
seven to seventy’; Patsy’s setting is ancient Tara where he
makes a fool of the arrogant English king; includes two modern stories,
‘The Ghost of Rathfarnham; A Brush with Brigands’]; The Lady
of the Cromlech (London: John Murray 1930), 318pp. [David Maxwell
falls in love with Irish girl in Paris, and hunts for her in Ireland with
only a portrait near a cromlech to guide him; meets seanachie, &c.];
ALSO Poetry, Donnán Dán (1917) and Songs
and Satires (1920). Criticism, Gaelic Literature Surveyed (1929);
lives of Colmcille [1929] and Theobald Wolfe Tone [1935],
and the local studies, Gentle Ireland (1935) and The
Black North, An Account of the Six Counties of Unrecovered Ireland (1938),
foreword by Eamon De Valera.
Kate Newmann, Dictionary of Ulster Biography (Belfast: QUB/IIS 1993), doesn’t mention his conversion to Catholicism or cite his Holy Romans, but calls him editor of The Standard; plays, King Dan and Two Kingdoms; lists prose, The Story of Colmcille (1929); Gaelic Literature Surveyed (1929); The Life of Wolfe Tone (1935); Towards the Republic; The Black North, and lives of saints.
Seamus Deane, gen. ed., Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (Derry: Field Day 1991), Vol. 2, earlier a socialist, he eventually became vocal propagandist for General Franco’s Catholic Spain in the 1930s; Clann na Poblachta candidate, later worked for Dept. of Health under Noel Browne. FDA 2 selects Studies (1934), de Blacam’s rejoinder to Daniel Corkery’s Synge and the Anglo-Irish (1931) in a piece entitled ‘The Other Hidden Ireland’ (a reference to Corkery’s earlier thesis in The Hidden Ireland, 1924), propounding a multi-racial gaeldom in opposition to the other’s exclusivism. He argues that there is a hidden Anglo-Ireland as well as a hidden Gaeldom’ and suggesting that ‘both Gaelic writers, like Dr. Corkery, and Anglo-Irish writers often err by surveying only a section of the true historical field. The identification of Gael with Catholic is plausible in a study of Jacobite Munster, but it collapses [in] the whole Gaelic field from Kerry to the Hebrides.’ The forensic emphasis of his essay rests on the ‘general knowledge of Irish by Protestants throughout rural areas’ and the more exemplary case of the biblical translators such as Bishop Daniel (Ulliam Ó Domnhnaill). He also stresses the drain of Protestant emigrants which reduced the initial extent of the implantation of Gaelic elements from Scotland. He calls the identification of Catholic with Gael bad religion and bad history, ‘a sort of Irish Nazi-ism’. [FDA2 1013-1018]. NOTE, Gaelic Literature Surveyed (1929): ‘The nation which had come into being in Cormac’s day was a nation comparable to antique Greece or Fascist Italy. It must have hummed with energies’ (p.23) [RW]. ALSO Towards the Republic, ‘The Making of the Nation’ [982-85]; BIOG, 1019.
Hyland Books (Cat 219) lists Henry H[amilton]. Blackham, Bard of Clanrye [1st edn.] (1932), introduced by Aodh de Blacam; copy used as Christmas greeting by poet’s grand-nephew, who financed publication. Note copy of same in University of Ulster Library (Morris Collection).
Belfast Central Public Library holds A Plea for Ireland (n.d.); Gaelic Lit. Surveyed (1921); Towards the Republic (n.d.); Theobald Wolfe Tone [1935]; title page of Republic cites Irish poems, Donnán Dán [?1920] UUC JORD holds A First Book ...; Holy Romans; Old Wine; Songs and Satires (1920); Towards the Republic (1918); What Sinn Fein Stands For (1921); MORRIS holds The Black North (1938); Towards the Republic (1918); The Story of Colmcille (c.1930). Herbert Bell Library (Belfast) holds Henry H. Blackham, O’Kellys Kingdom (Dublin [?1984]).
IT leaders: Aodh de Blacam, expert on Irish affairs, wrote leaders
for R. M. Smyllie on freelance basis. (John Gray, Irish Times,
Sat. 15th Sept. 1991).
George Boyce (Nationalism in Ireland, 1991 Edn.), quotes de Blacam’s allusion to the ‘foreign Ascendancy whose feet were on the necks of the Gaels’ (What Sinn Féin Stands For, p.23; Boyce, p.385.)
Edna Longley maintains that De Blacam engaged in the Spanish Civil War on Franco’s side (The Living Stream: Literature and Revisionism in Ireland, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne: Bloodaxe 1994, p.41.)
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)