Life
1916-1977 [Seán Pádraig Ó Riordáin]; b. Ballyvourney,
Co. Cork; ed. CBS, North Monastery, Cork city; worked in motor taxation
office in Cork from 1936, taking early retirement in 1965; early follower
and later reviler of Daniel Corkery’s ‘Hidden Ireland’
revivalism; poems appeared in Comhar (est. 1942) his collection
Eireaball Spideoíge (1952) aroused controversy; weekly column
in The Irish Times, 1967-1975; diaries since 1940; DLitt., NUI,
1976; d. Cork. DIW FDA OCIL
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Works
Eireaball Spideoíge (Baile Átha Cliath: Sáirséal
& Dill 1952, 1970, 1976), 118pp.; Brosna [No. 63] (Baile Átha
Cliath: Sáirséal & Dill 1964, 1965, 1967, 1970, 1984),
43pp., port by Seán Ó Súilleabháin [p.2];
Tar éis mo Bháis (Baile Átha Cliath: Sáirséal
& Dill 1967); Rí na nUile, mod. version from early Irish,
with Seán Ó Conghaile (BAC: Sáirséal &
Dill 1964); also Linte Liombó (BAC: Sáirséal
& Dill 1971, 1974, 1980), 45pp.
Miscellaneous, Pictiúir
Mháirtín Úi Chadhain [le] Seán Ó
Ríordáin [from The Irish Times, 24th October, 1969],
12pp. [TCD]; also Rí na nUile : Liricí diaga a cumadh
idir an 9ú agus an 19ú céad / arna gcur
in eagar ag Seán S. Ó Conghaile, maille le leagan Nua-Ghaeilge
achum Seán Ó Ríordáin, agus réamhfhocal
ón Ollamh Caitilí Ní Maol-Chroín (Baile
Átha Cliath: Sáirséal agus Dill 1964, 1966, 1967,
1971), 89pp.
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Criticism
Seán Ó Tuama, Filí faoi Sceimhle (Dublin:
Oifig an tSoláthair 1978).
Frank O’Brien, Filíocht Ghaeilge na Linne Seo (Baile Átha Cliath: An Clóchomhar 1968), pp.301-35.
Breandán Ó Doibhlin, ‘Seán O’Riordáin agus an Spiorad Barocach’, in Irishleabhar Mhá Nuadh (1967).
Seán Ó Tuama, ‘Sean Ó Ríordáin agus an Nuafhilíocht’, in Studia Hibernica, 12 (1973), pp.100-67 [rep. in Seán Mac Réamoinn, ed., The Pleasures of Gaelic Literature (1982)].
Tadhg Ó Dúshláine, ‘Seán O’Riordáin, Homo Ludens’, in The Maynooth Review, Vol. 4, No. 1 (May 1978), pp.53-62.
‘Special Seán O’Riordáin Edition’, Comhar (Bealtaine 1977).
Máire Mac an tSaoi, ‘Fireann ar an Uaigneas’ in Seán Ó Mórdha, ed., Scríobh 1 (Baile Átha Cliath: An Clóchomhar 1974).
John Jordan, ‘Seán O’Riordáin, After his Death’, Cyphers, 11 (Winter 1978), pp.45-49.
Seán Ó Tuama, ‘Seán O’Riordáin’, in Seán Mac Réamoinn, ed., The Pleasures of Gaelic Literature (Penguin 1982).
Seán Ó Coileáin, Seán O’Riordáin, Béatha agus Saothar (Baile Átha Cliath: An Clóchomhar 1982; 2nd edn. 1985).
Seán Ó Tuama, Repossessions: Selected Essays on Irish Literary Heritage (Cork UP 1995), pp.10-34.
Frank Sewell, ‘Seán Ó Ríordáin, ‘Joycery-Corkery-Sorcery’, The Irish Review, 23 (Winter 1998), pp.42-61.
Declan Kiberd, ‘Anglo-Gaelic Literature: Seán Ó Riordáin’, in Irish Classics (London: Granta 2000), pp.602-16.
Frank Sewell, ‘Between Two Languages: Poetry in Irish, English and Irish English’, in Matthew Campbell, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Contemporary Irish Poetry (Cambridge UP 2003), pp.149-68.
Theo Dorgan, ‘Twentieth-century Irish Language Poetry’ [essay], in An leabhar mór/The Great Book of Gaelic: ‘Apart from [Máirtín] Ó Direáin, no poetry of true value would appear in the Irish language until Seán Ó Ríordáin published Eireaball Spideoige in 1952.
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Notes
Scáthán Véarsaí ():
‘Remove from your mind / The surfaces of English civilisation, / Shelley, Keats, and Shakespeare: / Return again to your kind […]. / Make confession and make Pease with your own family tree.’ (Quoted with trans. in Declan Kiberd, ‘Anglo-Celtic Literature: Sean O Riordain’, in Irish Classics, London: Granta 2000, pp.606-16, p.615; quoted in Callum Boyle, ‘Tradition and Transgression in the Poetry of Michael Hartnett’, MA Diss., UUC, 2005, p.52.)
On Daniel Corkery: ‘Corkery told me once not to write a single line that wasn’t based on a line of the old [Irish language] poetry. But what can one do when things outside the tradition have gone into you - when the person is wider than the tradition? It’s okay staying within the understanding of Irish but it’s something else to leave some of yourself out of the equation. Nativeness [“an dúchas”] must be broadened however danger that is.] / Dúirt Ó Corcora liom uair gan aon line a scríobh ná beadh bunaithe ar line as an seanfhilíocht. Ac cad tá le déaneamh nuair a bhíonn nithe lasmuigh den dtraidisiún dulta i nduine - nuair a bhionn an duine níos fairsinge ná an traidisiún ... Tá sé ceart go leor fanuint laistigh de thuiscint na Gaeilge ach rude eile is ea cide díot féin a fhágaint as an áireamh. Ní foláir an dúchas d’fhairsingiu da dhainséaraí é’ (Quoted in Seán Ó Coilean, Seán Ó Riordáin: Beatha agus Saor, 1982, p.210; cited in Frank Sewell, ‘James Joyce’s Influence on Writers in Irish’, in Geert Lernout, et al., eds., The Reception of James Joyce in Europe, Thoemmes/Continuum 2004, p.477.)
On Ulysses (of James Joyce): ‘I’m reading Joyce’s Ulysses. Corkery once said that eighteenth-century [Irish] poets wrung a music out of the [Irish] language that had never been wrung out of it before. They played tricks with the music and the language and a shower of music fell down on them. As for us [modern poets in Irish], we ought to play with the meaning of words and a shower of meaning will fall on us. So let’s play with the meaning of words. Wordplay. / Mé ag léamh “Ulysses” le Joyce. Dúirt Corkery gur bhain filí na hochtú aoise déag ceol as an dteangain nár baineadh riamh roimis aisti. D’imríodh cleasanna le ceol na teangan agus do thit cith ceoil anuas orthu. Ní miste dúinne imirt le brí na bhfocal again titfidh cith bri anuas orainn. Imrimis le bri na bhfocal. Imirt focal. Joyce.’ (Quoted in Ó Coilean, op. cit., 1982, p.222; cited in Sewell, op. cit., 2004, p.478.)
Seamus Deane, gen. ed., Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (Derry: Field Day 1991), Vol. 3 selects from Eireaball Spideoíge; Brosna, ‘Adhlacadh Mo Mháthar’/‘My Mother’s Burial’; ‘Cúl an Tí’/‘Behind the House’; ‘Cnoc Mellerí/‘Mount Melleray’; ‘Reo’/‘Freeze; ‘Fiabhras’/‘Fever’; ‘Na Leamhain’/‘The Moths’; ‘Claustrophia’.
Ó Riordain was encouraged as an Irish writer
by Daniel Corkery and wrote a moving homage to him as ‘Do Dhomhall
Ó Corcora’, c.1950 (printed in Eireaball Spideoige),
but later recorded sense of bitterness towards him in a diary-entry, ‘Bhiodh
fíliocht a scríobh sa ghaeilge go dti gur leag Donall Ó
Corcora a lamh mharbh uirthi’ [Seán Ó Riordain,
Beatha agus Saothar, le Sean Ó Coileain, p.259; cited in Patrick
Walsh, UUC MA thesis, 1993, p.70].
His line ‘Ní file ac filíocht í an bhean’ [not poet but the subject of poetry is woman]’ is the subject of criticism by Nuala Ó Dhomhnaill in a contribution to Irish Poetry Since Kavanagh, ed. Theo Dorgan (Dublin: Four Courts 1996)
John Montague calls Seán Ó Riordáin ‘the hermit crab of / a receding language’ in Smashing the Piano (1999). See review by Bernard O’Donoghue, in The Irish Times, 15 Jan. 2000.
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)