Eoghan Rua Ó Súilleabháin

Who was Eoghan Rua Ó Súilleabháin?

Eoghan Rua Ó Súilleabháin, anglicized as Owen Roe O'Sullivan, was an Irish poet. Ó Súilleabháin is known as one of the last great Gaelic poets. A recent anthology of Irish-language poetry speaks of his "extremely musical" poems full of "astonishing technical virtuosity" and also notes that "Eoghan Rua is still spoken of and quoted in Irish-speaking districts in Munster as one of the great wits and playboys of the past."

Eoghan Rua was relatively unknown to English speakers until 1924, although famous among Irish-speakers, especially in Munster. In a 1903 book, Douglas Hyde, an Irish scholar from Roscommon who had learned Irish, referred to him as "a schoolmaster named O'Sullivan, in Munster" in his book The Songs of Connacht. The 1911 version of the Encyclopædia Britannica mentioned Eoghan Rua in an article on "Celtic Literature," calling him "the cleverest of the Jacobite poets" and noting that "his verses and bons mots are still well known in Munster."

In 1924, Daniel Corkery devoted a chapter of his groundbreaking book The Hidden Ireland to Eoghan Rua Ó Súilleabháin. The book was the first comprehensive look at the world of Irish-speakers during the 18th century, a period which had been considered completely barren except for English-language literature.