Fermoy event will celebrate Canon O’Leary’s life and work
SEMINAR WILL BE PART OF CREATIVE IRELAND’S CRINNIÚ NA CÁSCA DAY
THE legacy of one of the best known standard bearers for the Irish language during the late 18th and early 19th centuries will be remembered at an event taking place on Fermoy next Monday evening.
The event will incorporate the screening of a short film and a bilingual ‘ léacht’ by Eilís Uí Bhrain on the life and achievements of celebrated Irish language revivalist An tAhair Peadar Ó Laoghaire.
The event is being held under the umbrella of the Creative Ireland initiative, a five-year project aimed at placing arts and culture at the heart of communities across the country.
The Creative Ireland programme was born out of the success of the success and what Cork County Council heritage officer Conor Nelligan described as the “heightened sense of shared identity” generated by last year’s 1916 centenary celebrations.
He said that one aspect of the programme that warranted particular note was the introduction of ‘Crinniú na Cásca’, a new national day of cultural celebration which this year will take place on Easter Monday.
The Fermoy event is just one of a number taking place across the county including a gathering of pipe bands in the grounds of Mallow Castle, cultural events and re-enactments at the Ballincollig Gunpowder Mills and choral performances in Cobh.
More details about Creative Ireland and Crinniú na Cásca are available at www.corkcoco. ie/heritage.
Next Monday’s event in Fermoy, which will take place at 7.30pm in the Youth Centre, will be typical of many events taking place across Cork County, and indeed the entire country, under the Creative Ireland banner.
“The plan is based on the premise that participation in cultural activities drives personal and collective creativity, with significant implications of individual and societal well-being,” said Mr Nelligan.
Perhaps more than any person of his era, An tAthair Peadar Ó Laoghaire, who is widely regarded as one of the founders of modern Gaelic literature, would have appreciated these sentiments.
Born in the parish of Clondrohid in the Munster Gaeltacht, he attended St Colman’s College in Fermoy and St Patrick’s College, Maynooth before being ordained in 1867. He served in Rathcormac, Macroom, Charleville and Doneraile parishes before being appointed parish priests to Castleyons in 1891. He was made a Canon in 1911.
Although it was his custom to speak in Irish when possible, Canon O’Leary did not start writing until his mid-fifties, due in no small measure to the encouragement and support he received from the Gaelic League.
He was to become a prolific writer with his most famous book Séadna, which was serialised in the Gaelic Journal from 1894 and published in book form in 1904, widely regarded as being the first major work of the emerging Gaelic revival.
In addition to his own writings Canon O’Leary also translated some stories of medieval Gaelic literature into modern Irish and by the time he passed away in 1920 at the age of 81 he had almost 500 items to his credit.