Padraic Colum | |
|---|---|
 Photographed byCarl Van Vechten, 1959. | |
| Born | Patrick Columb (1881-12-08)8 December 1881 Columcille,County Longford, Ireland |
| Died | 11 January 1972(1972-01-11) (aged 90) Enfield, Connecticut, United States |
| Nationality | Irish |
| Alma mater | University College Dublin |
| Period | 1902–58 |
| Notable works | The Saxon Shillin,The King of Ireland's Son |
| Spouse | Mary Maguire |
Padraic Colum (8 December 1881 – 11 January 1972) was an Irish poet, novelist, dramatist, biographer, playwright, children's author andcollector of folklore. He was one of the leading figures of theIrish Literary Revival.
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Colum was bornPatrick Columb in aCounty Longford workhouse, where his father worked. He was the first of eight children born to Patrick and Susan Columb.[1]
When his father lost his job in 1889, he moved to the United States to participate in theColorado gold rush. Padraic and his mother and siblings remained in Ireland, having moved to live with his grandmother in County Cavan.[2] When his father returned in 1892, the family moved toGlasthule, nearDublin, where his father was employed as Assistant Manager atSandycove and Glasthule railway station. His son attended the localnational school.[citation needed]
When Susan Columb died in 1897,[3] the family was temporarily split up. Padraic (as he would be known) and one brother remained in Dublin, while their father and remaining children moved back to Longford. Colum finished school the following year and at the age of seventeen, he passed an exam for and was awarded a clerkship in the Irish Railway Clearing House. He stayed in this job until 1903.[citation needed]
During this period, Colum started to write and met a number of the leading Irish writers of the time, includingW. B. Yeats,Lady Gregory andÆ. He also joined theGaelic League and was a member of the first board of theAbbey Theatre. He became a regular user of theNational Library of Ireland, where he metJames Joyce and the two became lifelong friends. During the riots caused by the Abbey Theatre's production ofThe Playboy of the Western World Colum's own father, Patrick Columb, was one of the protesters.[4] Padraic himself was not engaged in the protests, although he did pay his father's fine afterwards.[citation needed]
He was awarded a five-year scholarship by a wealthy American benefactor, Thomas Hughes Kelly.[5]
He was awarded a prize byCumann na nGaedheal for his anti-enlistment play,The Saxon Shillin'. Through his plays he became involved with the National Theatre Society and became involved in the founding of theAbbey Theatre, writing several of its early productions. His first play,Broken Soil (revised as The Fiddler's House) (1903) was performed byW. G. Fay's Irish National Dramatic Company.[6]The Land (1905),[7] was one of that theatre's first great public successes. He wrote another important play for the Abbey namedThomas Muskerry (1910).[8]
His earliest published poems appeared inThe United Irishman, a paper edited byArthur Griffith. His first book,Wild Earth (1907) collected many of these poems and was dedicated to Æ. He published several poems inArthur Griffith's paper,The United Irishman this time, withThe Poor Scholar bringing him to the attention ofW. B. Yeats. He became a friend of Yeats andLady Gregory. In 1908, he wrote an introduction to theEveryman's Library edition ofEdgar Allan Poe'sTales of Mystery & Imagination.
He collected Irish folk songs, and adapted some of them. In a letter to theIrish Times in April 1970, he claimed to be the author of the words of "She Moved Through the Fair" (the music being composed byHerbert Hughes), using only a single verse from an oldCounty Donegal folk song.[9] In the same correspondence, however, another music collector, Proinsias Ó Conluain, said he had recorded a "very old" song fromGlenavy with words the same as the other three verses of "She Moved Through the Fair".[10]
In 1911, withMary Gunning Maguire, a student from UCD, and David Houston andThomas MacDonagh, he founded the short-lived literary journalThe Irish Review, which published work by Yeats,George Moore,Oliver St John Gogarty, and many other leading Revival figures.
In 1912 he married Maguire. Padraic taught atPádraig Pearse's experimental school,Scoil Éanna inRathfarnham, County Dublin and Mary Maguire taught at the girls' school, Scoil Íde (St. Ita's), which was set up in Cullenswood House,Ranelagh, Dublin, once Scoil Éanna had moved to Rathfarnham.[11] At first the couple lived in the Dublin suburb ofDonnybrook, where they held a regular Tuesday literary salon. They then moved toHowth, a small fishing village just to the north of the capital. In 1914, they travelled to the US for what was intended to be a visit of a few months but lasted most of the rest of their lives.[citation needed]
In America, Colum took up children's writing and published a number of collections of stories for children, beginning withThe King of Ireland's Son (1916). This book came about when Colum started translating an Irish folk tale fromGaelic because he did not want to forget the language. After it was published in theNew York Tribune, Hungarian IllustratorWilly Pogany suggested the possibility of a book collaboration, so Colum wove the folktale into a long, epic story.[12][13] Three of his books for children were awarded retrospective citations for theNewbery Honor. A contract for children's literature withMacmillan Publishers made him financially secure for the rest of his life. Some other books he wrote areThe Adventure of Odysseus (1918) andThe Children of Odin (1920). These works are important for bringing classical literature to children.
He contributed toEmma Goldman'sMother Earth.[14][15]
In 1922 he was commissioned to write versions of Hawaiian folklore for young people. This resulted in the publication of three volumes of his versions of tales from the islands. A first edition of the first volume (At the Gateways of the Day) was presented to US president Barack Obama by Taoiseach Enda Kenny on the occasion of his visit to Dublin, Ireland on 23 May 2011.[16] Colum also started writing novels. These includeCastle Conquer (1923) andThe Flying Swans (1937). The Colums spent the years from 1930 to 1933 living in Paris andNice, where Padraic renewed his friendship withJames Joyce and became involved in the transcription ofFinnegans Wake.
After their time in France, the couple moved to New York City, where they did some teaching atColumbia University andCCNY. Colum was a prolific author and published a total of 61 books, not counting his plays. He adopted the form ofNoh drama in his later plays.
While in New York, he wrote the screenplay for the 1954 stop-motion animated filmHansel and Gretel. It was his only screenplay.[17]
Mary died in 1957 and Padraic finishedOur Friend James Joyce, which they had worked on together. It was published in 1958. Colum divided his later years between the United States and Ireland. In 1961 the Catholic Library Association awarded him theRegina Medal. He died inEnfield, Connecticut, age 90, and was buried inSt. Fintan's Cemetery, Sutton.
In 1965, Colum sold the notebooks, manuscripts, galley proofs, and letters that were in his apartments in New York and Dublin to theBinghamton University Libraries. He wished to make whatever resources he could available to scholars of Irish literature and history.[18]
Asked how to say his name, he toldTheLiterary Digest the last name was the same as the wordcolumn. "In my first name, the firsta has the sound ofau. The ordinary pronunciation in Irish ispau'drig."[19]
As screenwriter:
As editor:
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Works by or aboutPadraic Colum atWikisource
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