Life
[?]1849-1900; poet and folklorist; b. Castlebar, Co. Mayo, of Huguenot
family; ed. Kingstown and TCD; India Office civil servant up to 1892 [var.
retired 1872, FDA]; conducted folklore fieldwork in Donegal, Mayo, and
Galway; contributed in 1899 to controversy between Yeats and George Russell
(AE), on the one side, and John Eglinton on the other; d. Bray, 19 Jan.;
the notice in Brooke and Rolleston’s Treasury (1900) is by
George Russell (“AE”). PI JMC DBIV IF TAY NCBE DIW DIB
DIH FDA OCIL
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Works
Fand and Other Poems (Dublin: Hodges Figgis 1892), 149pp., 8o.; Glanlua
and Other Poems (London: Kegan Paul & Co 1889), iv., 85pp.,
8o.; Legends as Material for Literature [no details; shelf no.
11852.e.43];West Irish Folk-Tales and Romances collected and translated
by W. Larminie, with introduction and notes, etc. [The Camden Library
No. 3]) (London: Elliot Stock 1893; 2nd edn. 1898; facs. rep. IUP 1972),
xxviii, 258pp., 8o.; West Irish Folk-tales and Romances, collected
and translated by William Larminie [1893] (Shannon: Irish University
Press [1972]), 3, xxviii, 258pp.
Miscellaneous, ‘The Development of English Metres’, in The Contemporary Review, 66 (Nov. 1894), pp.717-36; ‘Johannes Scotus Eriugena’, Contemporary Review, 71 (April 1897), pp.557-72.
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Criticism
John Eglinton, ‘William Larminie’, in Dublin Magazine
[New Series], XIX (AprilJune 1944), pp.12-16.
P. L. Marcus, Yeats and the Beginning of the Renaissance (Cornell UP 1970), pp.207-21. See also ‘Larminie Collection’, Irish Book Lover 6.
W. P. Ryan, The Irish Literary Revival (1894),
pp. 144-45.
Dominic Daly, The Young Douglas Hyde, 1974, n., p.208
Robert Farren, The Course of Irish Verse in English (1948), pp. 57-58; cont. to 61.
Chris Corr, ‘English Literary Culture and Irish Literary Revival’, PhD Thesis, UUC 1995.
J. W. Foster, Fictions of the Irish Literary Revival: a Changeling Art, Syracuse UP 1987, p.155.
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Notes
D. J. O’Donoghue, Poets of Ireland (Dublin:
Hodges Figgis 1912), lists Glanlua and Other Poems (Lon 1889);
Fand and Other Poems, (Dublin 1892); cites West Irish Folk-tales
[... &c.] without date; b. Mayo 1849, d. Bray 19 Jan. 1900;
anthologised in Brooke and Rolleston, A Treasury of Irish Poetry (1900).
Stephen Brown, Ireland in Fiction (Dublin: Maunsel 1919) lists West of Ireland Folk-Tales and Romances (London: Elliot Stock 1898), xxvi, 258pp. [sic], and remarks that these were ‘taken down by the editor, between 1884 and 1898, word for word in Renvyle, Achill, Glencolumcille and Malinmore; incls. remarks on phonetics and orthography; gives notice of a large, as yet unpublished collection.
Brian Cleeve & Ann Brady, A Dictionary of Irish Writers (Dublin: Lilliput 1985), cites West Irish Folk-tales and Romances (1898) [sic], stories recorded in Donegal, Mayo and Galway; trans. Johannes Scotus Eriugena’s De Divisione Naturae (unpublished).
Seamus Deane, gen. ed., Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (Derry: Field Day 1991), Vol. 2, selects from Fand and Other Poems, ‘The Nameless Doon’, Consolation’ [730-31];; see ‘The Development of English Metres’ in The Contemporary Review 66, Nov. 1894; Fand and Other Poems (1892) dominated by the title poem and another long narrative poem, ‘Moytura’, but contains ‘The Nameless Doon’ and ‘Consolation’ [730-31]; also Glanlua and Other Poems (1899). W. J. McCormack cites a passage written in 1899 [as infra.], clearly taken from Dublin Daily Express, 1898, see infra and Rx Larminie [Louis McNeice]), 845; a late contributor to the controversy in the columns of the Dublin Daily Express, rep. as Literary Ideals in Ireland, ed. John Eglinton (1899), 956; 779, BIOG, b. Castlebar, Co May, 1849 or 1850; ed. TCD; espoused Gaelic assonance in English poetry; worked in India Office, London, retired 1887, returned to Ireland; Revival figure; contrib. The Contemporary Review; collected folklore material; d. Bray; calls Larminie a verse theoretician. [WORKS & CRIT as supra]. FDA Vol. 3 incls. remark that ‘Yeats [is] embarrassingly near to Larminie’ (W. J. McCormack).
Justin McCarthy, ed., Irish Literature (Washington: Catholic Univ. of America 1904), gives extract from West Irish Folk Tales [1893]; also epilogue to Fand, and two other pieces.
Ulster Libraries: BELFAST CENTRAL PUBLIC LIBRARY holds Fand (1892); West Irish Folk-tales and Romances (1898); UNIV. of ULSTER LIBRARY (Morris Collection) holds West Irish Folk Tales and Romances [1893].
Variants: Note discrepancy in dating of Glanlua between
PI and FDA, while DIB dates his poems Glanlua (1889) and Fand
(1890) [sic]; note also that W. P. Ryan, writing in 1894, seems to
feel that Glanlua is the earlier. FDA remarks that ‘practically nothing
of his other volume, Glanlua (1899), survives’ - perhaps implying
that it comes after, but perhaps also that it has not been looked at.
NOTE also vars.: IF gives the date 1898 for an edition of his West
of Ireland Folk-Tales and Romances, but FDA cites 1893 with 1972 rep.
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)