User:Munterneese/sandbox/Séamus Ó Ceallaigh (1879-1954)

Séamus Ó CEALLAIGH (1879-1954) Family Roots Although Seamus and his brothers and sisters were born in Belfast, the family remained firmly rooted in Ballinascreen, a townland on the edge of the Sperrin Mountains in south Co Derry, where the Irish language survived well into the 20th century. His father Micheál-Eoghan, as was the custom, left the village when he was 17 to take up a place as a "publican's curate” (apprentice barman) in Belfast – one of the main jobs available to Catholics at the time. He prospered sufficiently to open an off-licence in the Fall's Road and send his oldest son to be educated by the Jesuits in Clongowes. Thanks to the early contact with native Irish speakers during the long holidays spent in Ballinascreen, the children became virtually bi-lingual and attended the first meeting the Belfast branch of the Gaelic League held in Ballinascreen in 1898. From then on, Séamus played an active role in the teaching of the language, corresponding frequently on the subject with Patrick Pearse. Subsequently he acted, free of charge, as school doctor at Pearse's experimental all-Irish school Saint Enda's. Higher Education and Training and Professional Life After Clongowes, and a year at Queen's University Belfast, Séamus transfered to the future National University, where he had the privilege, along with two other students (George Clancy, future Mayor of Limerick, murdered by the Black and Tans, and the musicologist Séamus Clandillon, first director of Radio Eireann), of what was to all intents and purposes private tuition from the distinguished Celtic scholar, Father Edmond Hogan, who had just begun to compile his place name dictionary Omomasticom Godelicum. This initiation was to serve Séamus throughout his life. The graduation photograph of 1902 shows him sitting at the feet of the master, in the front row second to the left of Felix Hackett, with his close friend Constantine Curran to the far right. James Joyce, whose path Séamus had briefly crossed in Clongowes, is standing to the left, slightly apart. The following year was spent at the École de médicine in Paris, where he was joined, shortly afterwards by James Joyce. Unlike his former class-mate, Séamus stood the course and returned to Dublin to pursue his medical studies at the Catholic University Medical School in Cecilia Street, completing the cursus in 1909, after which he set up in general practice in Rathgar, a Dublin suburb. In 1911 he married Máire (Birdie) Ferran, the sister of his close friend and Derry neighbour Dr Francis Ferran, whose political opinions he shared. The couple had two children, Cormac (1912) and Mór (1915). As his involvement in the 1916 rising, and the turbulence of the Anglo-Irish war had taken their toll, he decided to abandon general practice and, on the advice of his colleague Oliver Gogarty, spend a year in Vienna, specializing in obstetrics and gynacology. Back in Dublin, he divided his professional activities between his private practice in Fitzwilliam Street, his service in the Coombe Hospital and his teaching in the University Medical School. Political Convictions Séamus's life-long campaign for the restoration of the Irish language can be explained, in part, by his personal sense of identity and, in part, by the climate of the times. He would have become quickly aware that his juvenile passion for genealogy, toponymy, dialectology and local history was in keeping with the family tradition. It was the Ua Ceallaigh of Glenn Conkeyne, who sheltered the great Hugh O'Neill during the Nine Year War. He must have been proud to learn that they were both “seanachies” (historians) of the clan and expert harp makers. In honour of this tradition, Séamus named his son after a more recent ancestor Cormac na gCláirsigh (Cormac of the harp), maker of the famous Downhill harp (1702). In the effervescence of the campaign for Home Rule and the Gaelic revival, it was practically inevitable that he should become what James Joyce dismissed disparagingly as "an Irish language enthusiast”. For Séamus, this implied that the English language should be used only when it was strictly necessary. His own children's first language was therefore Irish and he saw to it that the people who worked in the house were native Irish speakers. Later Douglas Hyde was to boast of never having exchanged a word in English with him. Easter 1916 In his retrospective account of the weeks leading up to the Rising (Sgéal an Doctura Shéamais Ui Ceallaigh, 1953), Séamus explains how, his close friend Eoin Mac Neill had advised him against joining the Volunteers. As a doctor, not only did he have a telephone, but a valid pretext for visiting private houses at all hours of the day and night. In his own words, this freedom allowed him to make himself useful in a variety of ways. In his narrative he gives a detailed account of the role he played in the diffusion of what he calls the "bogus document” and of the great meeting held in his house, at the request of Eoin MacNeill, the night before Easter Sunday. The important fact that emerges from this is that Eoin MacNeill and Arthur Griffith signed the papers calling off the rising before the news came of the scuttling of the German ship and the arrest of Roger Casement, and not as a consequence, which is the official version. Although Séamus had a crate of guns buried in his garden, his actual participation in the Rising was limited to tending to the wounded in the ambushed Post Office. Later, he was part of the delegation which, in June 1922, tried unsuccessfully to persuade Rory O Connor not to burn down the Public Records Office. According to family history, he wept publicly and although violently against the Treaty, never forgave the partisans for what was a wanton act of sabotage. Just a year later, the death of his brother-in-law Francis Ferran in Tintown Camp, convinced him to decline all propositions of office from the new Dail. Although he systematically refused to vote, this did not prevent him from remaining on good terms with friends on both sides (pro- and anti-treaty). Despite his busy professional schedule, he managed to publish regularly in the various philological journals until his death in 1954. Contribution to the Restoration of the Language Séamus had long been involved in the Gaelic league – in both Ballinascreen and Belfast – and the year before leaving for Paris, Father Hogan's trio (Ó Ceallaigh, Clancy and Clandillon) had set up Irish language lessons for their fellow students. On his return, he joined forces with Patrick Pearse, who proposed classes, not only at the University for the students, but at the headquarters of the Dublin branch of the Gaelic League. During the six years that he spent at the Catholic University Medical School in Cecilia Street, he played a prominent role, joining the editorial staff of the University magazine, St Stephen's and contributing regularly to An Claidheamh Solus and Sinn Féin Daily. He also devoted his energies to the campaign for the inclusion of the Irish language in the curriculum of the new National University, founding in 1908, the Students' National Literary Societ as a forum for debate.

References Ó Ceallaigh (Séamus): Obituary of Murray (Laurence P.), An Iodh Morainn 2, 1941, pp. 27–30, 36. Ó Fiaich Tomás: Obituary of Ó Ceallaigh (Séamus), Onoma 5, 1954, pp. 126–7. portr. Eoghanach [pseud.]: Obituary of Ó Ceallaigh (Séamus), SAM 1, no. 2, 1955, pp. 211–4. portr. Mooney (Canice) ed.: Topographical fragments from the Francisan Library, Celtica 1, 1950, (no. 1, 1946), pp. 64–85. From MS Franc. A 31 (17th c.): 1. Kilmore and Ardagh placenames; 2. Derry and Tyrone placenames [cf. {2476}]; 3. A fragmentary alphabetical list of Irish placenames [cf. pp. 403–4]; 4. Another fragmentary alphabetical list of Irish Martyrology of Donegal]. From MS Franc. D 1 (17th c.): 5. A list of churches and their patrons in the diocese of Derry [with notes by Séamus Ó Ceallaigh]. Ó Ceallaigh (Séamus): Notes on place-names in Derry and Tyrone, Celtica 1, 1950, (no. 1, 1946), pp. 118–40 [cf. p. 404]. As published by C. Mooney, Celtica 1.67ff. {2475 } Ó Ceallaigh (Séamus): A preliminary note on some of the nomenclature on the map of S.E. Ulster bound up with the maps of the escheated counties, 1610. (Stationery Office, Southampton, 1860). JRSAI 81, 1951, pp. 37–43. Ó Ceallaigh (Séamus): Old lights on place-names: new lights on maps, JRSAI 80, 1950, pp. 172–86. Ó Ceallaigh (Séamus): Gleanings from Ulster history. Punann ó Chois Bhanna. Cork: U.P., 1951. 118 pp. pls. (maps), geneal.tab. t ...

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