Muiris Ó Súilleabháin (; 19 February 1904 – 25 June 1950), anglicised as Maurice O'Sullivan, was an Irish author famous for his

Irish language Irish (Standard Irish: ), also known as Irish Gaelic or simply Gaelic ( ), is a Celtic language of the Indo-European language family. It is a member of the Goidelic languages of the Insular Celtic sub branch of the family and is indigenous ...

memoir of growing up on the

Great Blasket Island The Great Blasket () is the principal island of the Blasket Islands, Blaskets, County Kerry, Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It was home to a small fishing community of Irish speakers until the island was abandoned in 1953 when living there bec ...

and in

Dingle Dingle ( or ''Daingean Uí Chúis'', meaning "fort of Ó Cúis") is a town in County Kerry in the south-west of Ireland. The only town on the Dingle Peninsula (known in Irish as ''Corca Dhuibhne''), it sits on the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coa ...

County Kerry County Kerry () is a Counties of Ireland, county on the southwest coast of Republic of Ireland, Ireland, within the Provinces of Ireland, province of Munster and the Southern Region, Ireland, Southern Region. It is bordered by two other countie ...

, off the western coast of Ireland. It is his unique published work.

Writings

(''Twenty Years a-Growing'') was published in Irish and English in 1933. As one of the last areas of Ireland in which the Irish language and culture had continued unchanged, the Great Blasket Island was a place of enormous interest to those seeking traditional Irish narratives. ÓSúilleabháin was persuaded to write his memoirs by

George Thomson George Thomson may refer to: Government and politics * George Thomson (MP for Southwark) (c. 1607–1691), English merchant and Parliamentarian soldier, official and politician * George Thomson, Baron Thomson of Monifieth (1921–2008), Scottish p ...

, a linguist and professor of Greek who had come to the island to hear and learn the Irish language. It was Thomson who encouraged him to join the Gardaí (police) rather than emigrate to America as most of the young people of the island did. Thomson edited and assembled the memoir, and arranged for its translation into English with the help of Moya Llewelyn Davies. While was received with tremendous enthusiasm by critics, including E.M. Forster, their praise at times had a condescending tone. Forster described the book as a document of a surviving "Neolithic" culture. Such interest was tied up with romantic notions of the Irish primitive, and thus when ÓSúilleabháin tried to find a publisher for his second book, (English: ''Twenty Years a-Flowering''), there was little interest, as this narrative necessarily departed from the romantic realm of turf fires and pipe-smoking wise-women.

Dylan Thomas Dylan Marlais Thomas (27 October 1914 – 9 November 1953) was a Welsh poet and writer, whose works include the poems " Do not go gentle into that good night" and " And death shall have no dominion", as well as the "play for voices" ''Un ...

commenced, but did not finish, a filmscript of ''Twenty Years a-Growing''.

Personal life

Following the death of his mother when he was six months old, ÓSúilleabháin was raised in an institution in Dingle, County Kerry. Aged eight, he returned to Great Blasket Island to live with his father, grandfather and the rest of his siblings, from whom he acquired an understanding of the Irish language. He joined the

Garda Síochána (; meaning "the Guardian(s) of the Peace") is the national police and security service of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is more commonly referred to as the Gardaí (; "Guardians") or "the Guards". The service is headed by the Garda Commissio ...

in Dublin in 1927 and was stationed in the Gaeltacht area of

Connemara Connemara ( ; ) is a region on the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast of western County Galway, in the west of Ireland. The area has a strong association with traditional Irish culture and contains much of the Connacht Irish-speaking Gaeltacht, ...

, where he kept up contact with Thomson. In 1934, He left the Guards and settled in Connemara. ÓSúilleabháin drowned on 25 June 1950, while swimming at Knocknacarra Irish Times 26 June 1950, which states that he was "a Civic Guard, stationed in Oughterard" off the Connemara coast.

Unique published work and its translations

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:OSullivan, Maurice 1904 births 1950 deaths Blasket Islands 20th-century Irish-language writers 20th-century Irish memoirists Garda Síochána officers Writers from County Kerry Police officers from County Kerry