Peter O'Leary

Father Peadar Ua Laoghaire or Peadar Ó Laoghaire (Irish pronunciation: [ˈpʲad̪ˠəɾˠ oː ˈl̪ˠeːɾʲə], first name locally [ˈpʲad̪ˠəɾʲ]; 30 April 1839 – 21 March 1920), also anglicised as Peter O'Leary, was an Irish writer and Catholic priest, who is regarded today as one of the founders of modern literature in Irish.

Life

He was born in Liscarrigane (Irish: Lios Carragáin) in the parish of Clondrohid (Irish: Cluain Droichead), County Cork, and grew up speaking Munster Irish in the Muskerry Gaeltacht. He was a descendant of the Carrignacurra branch of the Ó Laoghaire of the ancient Corcu Loígde.

He attended Maynooth College and was ordained a priest of the Roman Catholic Church in 1867. He became a parish priest in Castlelyons in 1891, and it was there that he wrote his most famous story, Séadna, and told it as a fireside story to three little girls. Séadna was the first major literary work of the emerging Gaelic revival. It was serialised in the Gaelic Journal from 1894, and published in book form in 1904. The plot of the story concerns a deal that the shoemaker Séadna struck with "the Dark Man". Although the story is rooted in the folklore the writer heard from shanachies by the fire during his youth, it is also closely related to the German legend of Faust. It was first published as a serial in various Irish-language magazines.

Apart from Séadna, Ua Laoghaire wrote an autobiography called Mo Sgéal Féin ("My Own Story"), published by Norma Borthwick's Irish Book Company. In addition, he translated some stories of medieval Gaelic literature into modern Irish, such as Eisirt and An Cleasaí, and translated an abridged version of Don Quixote into his local dialect of Irish.