Hyde, Douglas

(1860-1949)

   Born at Castlerea, County Roscommon, Ireland, the son of clergyman, he was to become a distinguished Gaelic scholar and writer and first president of the Republic of Ireland (Éire) from 1938 to 1945. His Irish name is Dubhighlas de Hide and his pseudonym was an Craoibhin Aoibhinn. He studied ancient Gaelic at Trinity College, Dublin and graduated in law in 1884. He was the first professor of modern Irish at University College, Dublin, in 1909 and held the chair until his retirement in 1932. Languages were his forte - Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French, German and Irish. He was one of the founding members of the Gaelic League in 1893 and was president until 1915. His verse translations have been included in many anthologies of English verse. He died at Phoenix Park, Dublin. His Love Songs of Connacht was published in 1893. Some of his poems: "Columcille cecenit (Columba)," "Farewell to Ireland; I Am Raftery," "I Shall Not Die for Thee," "My Grief on the Sea," "My Love, Oh, She is My Love," "Nelly of the Top-Knots," "The Breedyeen," "The Cooleen," "The Song of Fionn."

   Sources: An Anthology of Irish Verse: The Poetry of Ireland from Mythological Times to the Present. Padraic Colum, ed. Liveright, 1948. Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. Lyra Celtica: An Antholog y of Representative Celtic Poetry. E.A. Sharp and J. Matthay, ed. John Grant, 1924. Poemhunter (www.poemhunter.com). The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The Gaelic League (http://www.usna.edu/EnglishDept/ilv/gaelic.htm). The Oxford Book of Modern Verse, 1892-1935. William Butler Yeats, ed. Oxford University Press, 1936. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000. University College Dublin (http://www.ucd.ie/).