Life
1883-1953 [Thomas Francis O’Rahilly; commonly T. F.; also Tomás
Ó Rahille]; b. Listowel, Co. Kerry. worked as a clerk at Four Courts,
Dublin; assoc. with Eoin MacNeill; one of the first students and the School
of Irish learning, 1903; Ed. RUI, grad. 1905; fnd. ed. of Ga[e]delica;
Professor of Irish, TCD, 1919-29; special chairs in UCC and UCD, 1929-40;
director School of Celtic Studies, DIAS, 1941-47; lectured and wrote on
‘the Two St. Patricks’, DIAS 1942; ed. Celtica, Vol 1,
Pts. 1 and 2 (1946, 1950); DLitt, TCD, and Hon. Prof. of Irish, TCD, 1953;
P. S. O’Hegarty prepared a bibliography in 1936. DIB DIW OCIL
[ top ]
Works
[Tomás Ó Rathile] coll. & ed., Danta Grádha,
An Anthology of Irish Love Poetry (1350-1750), ed. (1925; 2nd edn.,
revised and enlarged 1926; rep. 1968), and Do. [new edn.] (Cork
UP 1993); ed., Measgra Dánta I: Miscellaneous Irish Poems,
(1927; rep. 1977); ed., Measgra Dánta I, Miscellaneous Irish
Poems, ed. (1927; rep. 1977); The Two Patricks (Dublin: DIAS 1942);
Early Irish History and Mythology (Dublin: DIAS 1946); Irish
Dialects Past & Present (1932). Also ed., Flaithrí Ó
Maolchonaire, Desiderius, otherwise called Sgáthán an
chrábhaidh (Dublin: DIAS 1955).
Meagra Dánta/Miscellaneous Irish Poems, Téaxtaí Gaelge as LSS - II/Irish Texts from MSS - II, edited by Thomas F. O’Rahilly, Professor of Irish in the University of Dublin; Part II (Cork University Press/Educational Company of Ireland 1927), 275pp.
[ top ]
Notes
T. F. O’Rahilly , ed., Celtica: Journal of School of Irish Studies,
Vol. 1 pt 1 (1946), 160pp.; also Vol. 1, Pt. 2 (1950). pp.161–409+iv
(Introd.) [DIAS Catl., 1996]
DIAS (Cat. 1996) lists T. F. O’Rahilly, Kathleen Mulchrone, et al., Catalogue of Irish manuscripts in the Royal Irish Academy [1926–1958] [published by the Royal Irish Academy, now bound and distributed by the School of Celtic Studies] (DIAS 1970), 27 fasciculi in 6 vols. and indexes (2 vols.), in 28 fasciscles, [Vol. I:] fasc. I-v, pp.1–654; [Vol. II:] fasc. vi–x, pp.655–1294; [Vol. III:] fasc. xi–xv, pp. 1295–1938; [Vol. IV:] fasc. xvi–xx, pp.1939–2578; [Vol. V:] fasc. xxi–xxv, pp.2579–3220; [Vol. VI:] fasc. xxvi–xxvii, pp.3221–3500; [Vol. VII:] Index I, pp.1–586; [Vol. VIII:] Index II (General index), pp.587–1331; Fasc. xxviii, pp.3501–3792.
University of Ulster Library, Morris Collection holds Danta Gradha, an anthology of love poetry of the 16th and 17th centuries (1916) [sic]; Irish Dialects ... (1932); Irish Poets, Historians and Judges in English Documents 1538-1615, with John MacNeill [Eoin Mac Neill] (Silva Coluti); Laoithe Cumainn (1925); Mea[s]gra Danta (Cork U.P., 1927).
Belfast Public Library holds Dánta Grádha (1916 [?recte 1926]); Early Irish History and Mythology (1946); A Miscellany of Irish Proverbs (1922); The Two Patricks (1942).
Hyland Books (214), Danfhocail, Irish Epigrams in Verse (1921); The Goidels and their Predecessors [Rhys Lect.] (1934); see also Hyland Books (Cat. 219; Oct. 1995).
O’Rahilly, Early Irish History and Mythology (DIAS 1946),
pp.184-92, O’Rahilly recognises Mogha and Conn as ancestor deities
of the South and North, and of the midland Giodels, respectively ... reduced
by the action of euhemerism from the status of gods to that of men [and
that] the whole incident concluding with the Cath Magh Lena is the factual
history of the invasion and gradual usurpation of the southern counties
of Ireland by Iberian Goidels. the Erainn were the dominant people in
Munster before the arrival of the Goidelic Eóganacht. The Erainn
fraternised with the Eoghanacht. So much did their friendship prosper
that at length they made efforts to prove themselves as having sprung
from the same stock. ... these two people declared the ancestor-deity
Eóghan their common patron. O’Rahilly continues, ‘all
through Irish literature, the northern half of Ireland is known as Leth
Cuinn, Conn’s Half, the southern half as Leth Mogha Nuadat (or, shortly,
Leth Mogha), Mug Nuadat’s Half. We may take it that here, as often,
the names of ancestors are used in a secondary sense to signify the peoples
descended from them, so that Leth Cuinn properly means ‘the half
dominated by the descendants of Conn (the Dál Cuinn)’ and
Leth Mogha Nuadat, ‘the half dominated by the descendants of Mug
Nuadat (the Eóghanacht)’. Such names could hardly have come
into existence until the Goidelic conquest was well advanced. Our early
historians usually prefer a pricturesque explanation to a prosaic one;
and so from the ninth century, if not earlier, we find them inferring
from those names that Conn and Mug Nuadat had divided Ireland between
them.’ (pp.191) [165] O’Rahilly continues with citations, ‘Their
partitioning of Ireland into two halves finds mention in the Irish World-Chronicle
(Rorannad Hériu i ndo eter Mug Nuadat, i, rig Muman, acus Chond
Cétchatach, i, eter d Ath cliath, AI, 7d. 16-18 [also RC XVIII,
7), and the genealogical tracts (...), though it is ignored in Lebor Gábala
which contents itself with recording the parallel portion of the country
between Eremon and Eber’ (O’Rahilly, p.192) CITED in George
A Little, Dublin Before the Vikings (1957).
James Plunkett: ‘I can still recall the great scandal of 1942, when a book called The Two Patricks was published by a learned Irish Professor who advanced the theory that there was one Patrick (Palladius Patrick) whose mission lasted from 432-461, and another who arrived in 462 and died about 490. The suggestion caused a national unheaval. If the careers of the two Patricks, through scholarly bungling, had become inextricably entangled, who did what? And worse still - which of them was the patron saint? If you addressed a prayer to one, might it not be delivered by mistake to the other? There was a feeling abroad that any concession to the two Patricks theory would lead unfailingly to a theory of no Patrick at all.’ (The Gems She Wore, 1972, cited in Allanah Hopkins, Living Legend of St. Patrick, 1989, p.150; see also under Flann O’Brien for his celebrated reaction to O’Rahilly’s 1942 paper.)
[facing title page] Danta Grádha, Cnósach de Sna Dánta Grá is Fearr San Ghaelge (A.D. 1350-1750), Tomás Ó Rathile do bailig is do Chóraig; an tarna Córú; é Cearthaithe agus méadaithe, Cuid 1, An Teux, fra reumhaiste ó Robin Flower (Cló Ollsgoile Chorcái, Colucht Oideachais ne hÉireann, Bleáclaith agus Corcaig 1929); An Anthology of Irish Love Poetry (1350-1750) [1925], 2nd edn., revised and enlarged’ Pt. I, Text with an Introduction by Robin Flower (Cork UP 1926), 147pp.
[ top ]
Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)