Donal O’Sullivan

Life
1893-1973 [D. J. O’Sullivan; Donal J. O’Sullivan]; President of Irish Council of Eur. Movement; Dir. Stud. in Irish Folk Music and Song, UCD; author of O’Carolan: Life, Times and Music of an Irish Harper (1958); also ed., Songs of the Irish (1960; 1967). DIB DIW

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Works
  • The Bunting Collection of Irish Folk Music and Songs, ed. from the original manuscripts by D. J. O’Sullivan [Journal of Irish Folk Song Soc.] 6 vols. (1927-39), and Do (Cork UP 1983), xvii, 226pp.
  • Carolan: The Life, Times and Music of an Irish Harper, 2 vols. (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul 1958; rep. Lincolnshire, England: Celtic Music 1983) [Vol. 1: The Life and Times; The Music, pp.165-285; Vol. 2: The Notes to the Tunes; Memoirs of Arthur O’Neill].
  • Irish Folk Music and Song [Cultural Relations Committee of Ireland] (Colm O’Lochlann 1952) , 62pp., ill. Muriel Brandt.
  • Songs of the Irish: An Anthology of Irish Folk Music and Poetry with English Verse Translations (Dublin: Browne & Nolan 1960), and Do. [rep. edn.] (Cork: Mercier Press 1981), 199pp..
  • The Spice of Life and Other Essays (Dublin: Browne & Nolan [1948]), ix, 126pp. [prev. in [Irish] Times Pictorial, pseud. “Outis”].

See also his Handbook of Iris Folklore, (1942).

Auction: Catalogue of auction sale of antique furniture, silver and miscellaneous effects: at Cairn Hall, Westminster Road, Foxrock, Co. Dublin. Wednesday, 30th September, 1959 (Jackson-Stops & McCabe 1959).

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Criticism
Patrick Morrissey, ‘Dúchas: A Personal Essay’, in Éire-Ireland, 4, 2 (Summer 1969), pp. 117-27.

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Quotations
Irish music: ‘Knowledge without enthusiasm may be cold and forbidding, but enthusiasm without knowledge can be a dreadful thing, and it has too often plagued this subject of Irish music.’ (Quoted in Gerry Smyth, ‘Amateurs and Textperts: Studying Irish Traditional Music’, in Irish Studies Review Autumn 1995, pp.2-10; pp.4-5.)

The Irish in love: ‘The Irishman or Irishwoman in love is almost invariably a sad person, and so the vast majority of our love songs are mournful.’ (Songs of the Irish, Dublin, 1960, p.62; quoted in George-Denis Zimmerman, ‘Thematique de l’amour dans les ballades traditionelle irlandaises’, cited in Études irlandaises, ed. Patrick Rafroidi, et al., Lille 1979.)

Esoteric Irish?: ‘[W. B. Yeats’s notion that] the genius of Gaelic Ireland possesses some peculiar occult or esoteric quality. Indeed, the very term Celtic Twilight is now commonly accepted as expressive of this supposed characteristic [...] It must here be stated categorically that a survey of Gaelic literature as a whole discloses no ground whatever for such a belief.’ (Intro. to Songs of the Irish, Browne & Nolan, 1967, p.11; quoted in James Flannery, W. B. Yeats and the Idea of A Theatre, Yale UP, 1976, p.71.)

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References
Hyland Books (Cat. 224) lists Songs of the Irish [1st edn.] (1960).

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Notes
Máire Mac an tSaoi cites Donal O’Sullivan, Thaddeus Connellan and His Books of Irish Poetry [monograph; n.d.] in her Introduction to the James Hardiman’s Irish Minstrelsy [facs. edn.] (IUP Edn. 1977), p.vii.

Namesake: among sundry others, The Irish Free State and its senate: a study in contemporary politics (London: Faber 1940: NY), and Do. [facs. edn.] ; Arno Press 1972), xxxi, 666pp.