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Life
1888-1974; b. North Wall, Dublin; ed. O’Connell CBS and RUI; NUI travelling schol., 1911; studied Early Irish in Germany, also studied in Paris; French lect. at UCD, 1914; sworn into the IRB by Seán T. Ó Ceallaigh; fought in 1916 (College of Surgeons); imprisoned at Frognoch; Romance Prof. UCG, 1917-59; Sinn Féin candidate for S. Armagh, 1918; served as a Republican court judge, 1920; interned in Wandsworth Prison, 1920-21; took the Treaty side in the Irish Civil War; stood unsuccessfully as a Seanad candidate, 1925; translated and also the Anglo-Irish writers (Gregory, Synge and Pearse) into Irish for the Gaelic Theatre, Galway [Taibhdhearc na Gaillimhe], which he founded with Mac Liammóir, 1928;
trans. La Bruyère, Henri Ghéon, Molière, Shakespeare, et al.; elected President of TnG, 1931; served as chairman of An Club Leabhar for 18 years; mbr. of Gaelic League exec.; awarded chevalier Legion d’Honneur, 1951; appt. to Chair of Romance languages, UCG, 1917-1959; Ó Briain agreed to serve on the Censorship Appeal Board, 1953- ; issued memoirs as Cuimhní Cinn (1951) giving a vivid account of the 1916 Rising and ending with the East Clare bye-election in 1917; retired in Dublin and d. 11 Aug. 1974. DIW DIB OCIL
Works
Cuimhní Cinn (Dublin: Sáirséal agus Dill 1951); trans., Gearmairecht Dhroicid an Diabhail, from Ghéon (1932); Déirdre an Bhróin (1932) [Synge’s Deirdre of the Sorrows]; An t-Amhránaidhe (1936; prod. Abbey 1942) [from Pearse]; Cat na mBróg (1936) [from Ghéon]; Grádh Cásmha (1937) [ from Molière] ; Coriolanus (1938) [after Shakespeare]; Ar an mBóthar Mór(1943) [from Jeane-Jacque Bernard]; also An tUbhall Oir [from Lady Gregory]; An Chúis i haghaidh Iosa [from Diego Fabbri’s Proces a Jesu], et al.
Commentary
Oliver Snoddy, (‘Notes on Literature in Irish Dealing with the Fight for Freedom‘, in Éire-Ireland, 3, 2, Summer 1968 [pp.138-48], writes of Cuimhní Cinn: ‘It is one of the best first-hand accounts of the Rising from the pen of a participant, made all the more attractive by the humanity, humor and honest of the man. O’Briain was one of the couriers used by Eoin MacNéill to convey around the country his order countermanding the arrangements already made by Pearse. However, when the Rising started the next day, Ó Briain, set out to join his company.’ (p.145.)
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