Pádraig Ó Fiannachta | |
Birth Date: | 1927 |
Birth Place: | Ballymore, County Kerry, Ireland |
Death Place: | Dingle, County Kerry |
Known For: | Academia |
Alma Mater: | Maynooth College |
Notable Works: | Irish: An Bíobla Naofa |
Parents: | John Ó Fiannachta, Nora Houlihan |
Relatives: | Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill |
Pádraig Ó Fiannachta (1927 – 15 July 2016) was an Irish-language scholar, poet and priest from the Kerry Gaeltacht. He is perhaps best known for producing a translation of the Christian Bible into the Irish language.
Ó Fiannachta studied at Maynooth, University College Cork and All Hallows, Clonliffe College. He was ordained a priest in All Hallows College in 1953.[1]
He served for some time as a priest in Wales,[1] where he became a good friend of Waldo Williams, prior to returning to Maynooth College, where he became professor of early Irish in 1960 as well as Welsh Language lecturer.[1] He was made professor of Modern Irish at Maynooth in 1982 and was awarded the Douglas Hyde prize for literature in 1969.
He translated and edited an Irish-language version of the Bible – An Bíobla Naofa which was published in 1982.[2]
In Irish: Léim an Dá Mhíle (1999); bilingual Irish/English edition (2005), he portrays the public life of Jesus as lived, not in Galilee, but in the Dingle peninsula.[3]
He retired from Maynooth in 1992, returning to Dingle as parish priest. In 1998 he was awarded the title monsignor by Pope John Paul II.[1] In 2013, he was made a Companion of the Order of Clans of Ireland.[4] In 2015 he was awarded the American Irish Historical Society's Cultural Award.[1]
He was involved in many Dingle events such as the blessing of the boats and participated in the Dingle/Daingean Uí Chúis name-change debate.[5]
He died in Dingle on 15 July 2016 at the age of 89[6] and is buried in the grounds of Séipéal Chaitlíona in Ventry.[1]