- T. F. O'Rahilly
Thomas Francis O'Rahilly,
Irish name Tomás Proinsias Ó Rathaile (1883–1953), was an influential scholar of theCeltic languages , particularly in the fields ofHistorical linguistics and Irishdialect s. He was a member of theRoyal Irish Academy .He was born in
Listowel ,County Kerry ,Ireland . Educated at theRoyal University of Ireland , he held professorships in Irish atTrinity College, Dublin (1919-1929), and in Celtic languages at University College Cork (1929-1935) and University College Dublin (1935-1941). He was director of the School of Celtic Studies at theDublin Institute for Advanced Studies from 1942 to 1947.O'Rahilly was known for his sometimes controversial theories of Irish history. In his book "Early Irish history and mythology", first published in 1946, O'Rahilly developed a model of Irish prehistory based on critical reading of early Irish literary sources, involving four waves of Celtic-speaking invaders (see
Early history of Ireland ). In a lecture published in 1942 he proposed that there were two Patricks.His views on
language contact andbilingualism were equally controversial. In "Irish dialects past and present" (1932) he wrote the following about Manx:This view has more recently been challenged by Nicholas Williams, who suggests that Manx is Gaelic pidginized by early contact with Norse, long before there was any English spoken in Man.
Other publications include a series of anthologies of Irish verse published between 1916 and 1927. He founded and edited "Gadelica: a Journal of Modern Irish studies", and edited the journal "Celtica" (1946-1950).
His sister
Cecile O'Rahilly was also a Celtic scholar, and published editions of both recensions of the "Táin Bó Cúailnge ".He died in
Dublin .External links
* [http://www.archiveshub.ac.uk/news/0502orahilly.html T. F. O'Rahilly Papers]
* [http://humphrysfamilytree.com/ORahilly/thomas.francis.html Thomas Francis O'Rahilly - a family history page]
* [http://www.pgil-eirdata.org/html/pgil_datasets/authors/o/ORahilly,TF/life.htm T. F. O'Rahilly]
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
