Liam Ó Rinn

Liam Ó Rinn (20 November 1886 – 3 October 1943; born William J. Ring, also known by the pen name ) was a civil servant and Irish-language writer and translator, best known for "Amhrán na bhFiann", a translation of "The Soldier's Song", the Irish national anthem, which has largely eclipsed Peadar Kearney's English-language original.

Life and career

Ó Rinn was born in Ballybough, Dublin, one of five sons and one daughter of Patrick Ring, a Dublin Metropolitan Police officer from Kilkenny, and his wife Elizabeth (née Griffith) from Laytown, County Meath.Breathnach & Ní Mhurchú, 2015 He attended St. Joseph's C.B.S. in Fairview, leaving aged 14 to work as a solicitor's clerk. He studied Irish with the Gaelic League, where he worked from c.1907 to 1920. He took part in the Easter Rising and was interned at Frongoch until December 1916. He was interned for a year in the Irish War of Independence. He wrote articles in Irish from 1914 and published books from 1920. He translated news stories in the ''Freeman's Journal'' in 1922–24, when he went to work in the Free State Oireachtas' translation department, producing Irish versions of official documents, including the 1922 constitution and the current 1937 constitution. He learned French, German, Spanish, Welsh, and Russian, and translated works from several Continental authors. He married Ellen Fennelly in 1920; they had several children.

Piaras Béaslaí said of Ó Rinn:

Art Ó Maolfhábhail noted his influence in writing about the modern urban world, including coining many new terms.

Amhrán na bhFiann

Although Ruth Sherry says Ó Rinn's translation of " The Soldiers' Song" was first published in ''An tÓglach'' (the magazine of the Irish Defence Forces) on 3 November 1923, an almost identical text was printed in the ''Freeman's Journal'' on 3 April 1923, under Ó Rinn's pen name "Coinneach". Other translations had already been made into literary Classical Irish, whereas Ó Rinn favoured the living vernacular spoken in Gaeltacht areas. The Gaelic Athletic Association adopted Ó Rinn's version in the 1930s to be sung before all its matches, and it gradually eclipsed the English-language version in general use. Although the Irish version was never formally adopted by the state, both the English and Irish texts appear in ''Facts about Ireland'', published by the Department of Foreign Affairs, and on the official website of the Department of the Taoiseach.

Works

;Translations into Irish:
* ''The Books of the Polish People and of the Polish Pilgrimage'' by Adam Mickiewicz, , ,
* ''Prose poems'' by Ivan Turgenev
* ''Rise of the Irish Volunteers'' by Maurice George Moore,
* ''Stars in Their Courses'' by James Hopwood Jeans
* ''Intensive Culture of Crops'' by Henri de Courcy, ,
* ''Hygiene'' by Richard Hayes
* ''Our Country's Story'' by A. B. Ochiltree Ferguson
* ''The Law-Suit'' by Roderich Benedix
* " The Soldier's Song" by Peadar Kearney

;Original works:
* ''"Cad ba dhóbair dó" agus sgeulta eile''
* ''Turus go Páras''
* ''Peann agus Pár'',
* ''Mo chara Stiofán''
*
*

;Other:
* ''Slighe na Saoirse'' (Irish Volunteers drill guide)
* ''So súd'' (anthology),

Sources

*
*

References

;General:

;WorldCat:

{{DEFAULTSORT:O Rinn, Liam
Translators to Irish
Translators from Polish
Russian–Irish translators
Irish translators
20th-century Irish male writers
Civil servants from Dublin (city)
People of the Easter Rising
Writers from Dublin (city)
Irish-language writers
20th-century Irish translators
People educated at St Joseph's, Fairview

1886 births
1943 deaths