P. A. Ó Síocháin
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- This article is about the Irish author and language activist. For other people, see Patrick Augustine Sheehan (disambiguation).
Pádraig Augustine Ó Síocháin (P.A.), 1905 – 1995, journalist, author, lawyer and Irish language activist, was born in Kanturk, Co. Cork, Ireland on 26 May 1905, the sixth child and fourth son of five sons and five daughters of Daniel Desmond (D.D.) Sheehan, BL., M.P. for Mid-Cork, of Kanturk, and Mary Pauline (née O'Connor) from Tralee co. Kerry.
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[edit] Journalism
He was educated at Kanturk National school, Rochestown College, Cork, and London University, receiving a diploma in journalism in 1923. Appointed junior reporter for the Daily Sketch in London in 1924, he returned to Ireland in 1924 as junior editor of the Enniscorthy Echo, County Wexford.
Moving to Dublin, from 1927 to 1931 he was a reporter, political and aviation correspondent for the Irish Times, reporting exclusively on the first east-west Atlantic crossing by an aeroplane, the Bremen, in 1928 from Baldonnel Airfield, County Dublin.
He was one of the founder members of the Irish Press in 1931, for which he worked as political correspondent for some years. As trade union member he served many years on the Newspaper Conciliation Board as trade union representative. He was responsible for securing the agreement settling the hours and wages for journalists in the Irish national press.
[edit] Editor
During the 1930s he was editor of the Irish Aviation Magazine, the New Irish Magazine, and from 1931 editor of the official journal of Ireland's National Police Service, the Garda Síochána's (in English the Guardians of the Peace) - Garda Review , which he edited for 35 years in accordance with General Eoin O'Duffy's instructions to edit it strictly in the interest of the service members.
[edit] War Emergency
During the war emergency (1939 - 1946) he was Local Defence Force (LDF) area company leader and on the district HQ staff, as well as initiating and directing a parish council movement for the distribution of 10,000 tons of turf peat fuel and 750 tons of timber supplies from the Dublin and Wicklow Mountains to south Dublin homes during the war rationing period on a unique share system.
[edit] Lawyer
Beginning law studies in 1933 he qualified as barrister-at-law at King's Inns Dublin on 2 November 1936. He was called to the Inner Law Bar as Senior Counsel on 2 March 1948, practising extensively at the Four Courts, Dublin, specialising in trade union law, acting as legal adviser for 20 years to the Marine Port and General Worker's Union. He was also recognised as an authority on Criminal Law and Constitutional Law. He published as author several legal books also officially in the Irish Gaelic language, the first since the ancient Brehon Laws.
[edit] Language activist
Early in 1948 he changed the family name from Sheehan to the modern Gaelic version of Ó Síocháin. In the 1950s he recognised the need for himself to understand his native country at a deeper level, so becoming involved with the Aran Islands where he perfected his spoken Gaelic to the fluency of a native speaker and gained immense respect from the islanders.
He was founder and president of CARA, Society of Friends to promote the spoken use of the Irish language, and established an Irish language school in Dublin, also using learning recording systems.
He was fervently against the compulsive requirements of taking Irish in schools, feeling that the language could best be promoted through enthusiasm and self-desire.
[edit] Aran Islands engagement
on the Aran Islands to President John F. Kennedy at a White House reception for an Irish Exporter's delegation's visit in 1962.
In 1952 he acquired a company Galway Bay Products Ltd. from a Dublin client Norman Baillie-Stewart, to develop, market and export hand-knitted Aran Islands's knitwear, pioneering in the later 1950s and early 1960s the big sales boom of Aran sweaters and cardigans to the United States, later adding a similar range of co. Wexford Loch Garman handknits, expanding his markets further in the 1970s to include Europe, Canada, Australia, and, significantly, Japan. His sales brochures and book on the Aran Isles were illustrated by the Irish artist Seán Keating .
During those decades he recorded in detailed documentary films the life and traditions on the islands. Elsewhere he furthered the fishing industry by providing two modern trawlers in the 1970s under his company Shannon Atlantic Fisheries Ltd.
[edit] Politics
He was a member of the Fianna Fáil party from the early 1930s, having been County Dublin's Fianna Fáil director of elections in 1948 achieving one of their best returns, but abandoning them in 1952 due to their disinterest in furthering the Gaelic Irish language.
During the 1960s he turned his attention again to politics, now becoming involved in the Labour movement, standing as an unsuccessful Labour party candidate for County Clare in the 1965 general election, polling relatively well.
[edit] Other activities
He wrote numerous books, on history, law, as well as diverse newspaper articles. He was presiding president of the PEN Club of Ireland in 1956. He became an excellent low handicap golfer, winning many local tournaments, was a year round Dalkey-Forty-foot swimmer and qualified to pilot aircraft out of Weston Airfield and gliders out of Baldonnel. In the early 1930s as members of the Dublin and District Motor Club, he as navigator, his wife Marjorie as driver, won many road rally trophies.
[edit] Family and reading
In 1931 he married Marjorie Ann Griffin of Rowlestown, County Dublin. They had four sons, Niall Padraig Maire (b. 1932), Dr. Donal Adrien Maire (1936 - 1961), Parra Maire (b. 1942), Ruarí Maire (b. 1944), and one daughter, Orla Maire (b. 1940).
They lived at Rathfarnham, Dublin, where he died unexpectedly in his family home on 19 December 1995, aged 90, and is buried at Cruagh cemetery, South Dublin hills.
His wife, renowned for her greyhound racing, coursing and breeding, predeceased him in 1984.
- Personal Publications:
- Outline of Evidence: Practice and Procedure, (2nd. Edition 1953)
- Dlí na Fianaise in Éirinn, (1953), an Dara hEagrán (2nd. Ed.) (1962)
- The Criminal Law of Ireland, (8th. Edition 1988)
- Dlí Coiriúil na h-Éireann, (1964)
- Aran Islands of Legend, (3rd. Edition 1967)
- Ireland: A journey into lost time, (1983)
- Ireland: Journey to freedom, (1990)
- Other references:
- Deirdre McQuillan The Aran Sweater, (1993)
- Liam McNiffe The History of the Garda Síochána, (1997)
- Ruarí Ó Síocháin Aran Islands - A Journey through changing times,
(Video/DVD 2003) (see Available from Burren Smoke House (external link)).
