Pádraig Ó hÉigeartaigh

Pádraig Ó hÉigeartaigh (1871–1936) was an Irish poet.

Life

Early life A native of Uíbh Ráthach, County Kerry, Ó hÉigeartaigh emigrated with his father, Patrick, a laborer, and his mother, Mary Lynch, to the United States when he was 12 years old and worked in a cotton factory. He lived his adult life in Springfield, Massachusetts. At the time, authors of the Gaelic revival preferred to write in the Classical Gaelic, the literary language once common to the Gaels of both Ireland and Scotland, and felt scorn for the oral poetry of the Gaeltachtaí. Ó hÉigeartaigh, however, drew upon that very tradition to express his grief and proved that it could still be used very effectively by an early 20th-century poet. Ochón! a Dhonncha has a permanent place in the literary canon of Irish poetry in the Irish language and has been translated into English by both Patrick Pearse and Thomas Kinsella.

Death Ó hÉigeartaigh died of pneumonia in 1936 in Springfield, MA.