Patrick Stephen Dinneen (Irish: Pádraig Ua Duinnín; 25 December 1860–29 September 1934) was an Irish lexicographer and historian.
Dinneen was born near Rathmore, County Kerry.[1] He was educated at Shrone and Meentogues National Schools and at St. Brendan's College in Killarney.[2] He joined the Society of Jesus in 1880 and was ordained a priest in 1894, but left the order in 1900 to devote his life to the study of the Irish language while still remaining a priest. After his ordination, he taught Irish, English, classics, and mathematics in three different Jesuit colleges, including Clongowes Wood College, a Jesuit boarding school near Clane, Co. Kildare.
He was a leading figure in the Irish Texts Society, publishing editions of Geoffrey Keating's Foras Feasa ar Éirinn, poems by Aogán Ó Rathaille and Piaras Feiritéar, and other works. He also wrote a novel and a play in Irish, and translated such works as Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol into Irish. His best known work, however, is his Irish-English dictionary, Foclóir Gaedhilge agus Béarla, which was first published in 1904.[3] The stock and plates of the dictionary were destroyed during the Easter Rising of 1916, so Dinneen took the opportunity to expand the dictionary. A much larger second edition was published in 1927.[4]
He died in Dublin at the age of 73 and is buried in Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin. [5]