Ó Cadhain, Máirtín

Concise Oxford Companion to Irish Literature, The, January, 2000 by ROBERT WELCH

Ó Cadhain, Máirtín (1906–1970), novelist and short-story writer. Born in Cois Fharraige, in the Connemara Gaeltacht , to a family of well-known story-tellers, Ó Cadhain was educated at the local national school in Spiddal and qualified as a teacher at Saint Patrick's College in 1926.

He joined the IRA , eventually becoming a recruiting officer and a member of the Army Council. He also became involved in Gaeltacht issues. He was a lifelong, often controversial, language-rights activist, declaring that ‘the Irish language is my life essence’. Idir Shugradh agus Dáiríre (1939) was a volume of stories based on the life of his own community. Because of his republican activities, Ó Cadhain spent most of the war years...

Read the rest of this article with a Free Trial at HighBeam Research.

Premium Content Partnership | HighBeam Research provides an in-depth online archive library of reference works.