Standish Hayes  O’Grady

On this day in 1832 a man called Standish Hayes  O’Grady was born in Castleconnell, county Limerick. It was cholera and mass death in Ireland. It was in Limerick that the young man would learn Irish from native speakers and he went on to influence a whole generation of people who were part of the Gaelic revival towards the end of the 19th century. But how and why?

In 1968 the Evening herald wrote this piece about O’Grady:

Standish Hayes O'Grady was one of Ireland's greatest scholars and did more for the preservation of the Irish language than many who came after him in the language revival movement.

He was a Unionist in politics, but an Irishman by the profession of his belief in the ancient culture of the Gaol, and by the nature of his work to preserve and restore that culture.

He was born at Castleconnell In 1332. and was a nephew of Viscount Guillamore. He was educated at Rugby College and Trinity College, Dublin, and it was here that he copied the Irish manuscripts.

Irish was. of course, "his sweet mother tongue," and because of that he was elected president of the Ossianic Society in 1856. His great friends of this period were O'Donovan and O'Curry who wero also deeply interested in the preservation of Ireland's ancient past.

O'Grady spent 30 years in California, working as a civil engineer, and upon his return to London began to compile a catalogue of Irish manuscripts in the British Museum. This catalogue he did not complete. It was finished by Robin Flower.

In 1892, Cambridge University conferred upon O'Grady the decree of D.Litt., and Dr, Douglas Hyde described him as "a brilliant and great speaker of Irish, as witty in that language as he was In English." Eleanor Hull wrote of him as "the last of the grand old scholars of Ireland." This was quite true for he gave a lifetime to preserve our heritage of Gaelic literature. Standish O'Grady died at Hale, Cheshire, in 1916, Ireland should not forget the work he did on behalf of our national culture.

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