Liam Ó Muirthile

Liam Ó Muirthile (1950 – 18 May 2018) was a prominent Irish-language poet who also wrote plays and novels, he was also a journalist. Ó Muirthile originally came to the fore as a member of a group of poets from University College Cork who collaborated in the journal Innti in the late 1960s.

Camino de Santiago: Dánta, poems, poemas. Cois Life, Dublin 2018.

Wood Cutting: New and Selected Poems. Cois Life, Dublin 2014.

An Seileitleán agus véarsaí seilí eilí. Cois Life, Dublin 2005.

Sister Elizabeth ag eitilt. Cois Life, Dublin 2005.

Rogha Alt: An Peann Coitianta 1989–2003. Cois Life, Dublin 2013.

His first collection of poetry was Tine Chnámh (1984). This received the Irish American Cultural Institute’s literary award and an Oireachtas prize for poetry. He subsequently published a number of other collections. In 1996 he received the Butler Award for his novel Ar Bhruach na Laoi. Several plays by him have been staged. From 1989 to 2003 he wrote a weekly column, “An Peann Coitianta,” for the Irish Times. Poems by him have been translated into English, German, French, Italian, Hungarian and Romanian.

Tine Chnámh. Sáirséal Ó Marcaigh, Dublin 1984. Revised and adapted for stage by Liam Ó Muirthile and Michael Scott.

He was born in Cork in 1950 and was educated there. He took a BA in Irish and French at UCC. His Irish was acquired at school and from sojourns in the Gaeltacht of West Kerry. He was a member of a group of poets at University College Cork in the late 1960s who chose Irish as a creative medium and were closely associated with the modernist poetry journal Innti, founded by fellow poet Michael Davitt (1950-2005). They were influenced by the work of Cork poet Seán Ó Ríordáin, by the musician and composer Seán Ó Riada, and by popular American culture.