ISLAND STORY: THE IRISH‑LANGUAGE WRITING OF LIAM AND THOMAS O’FLAHERTY
ISLAND STORY: THE IRISH‑LANGUAGE WRITING OF LIAM AND THOMAS O’FLAHERTY

Summary/Abstract: Liam O’Flaherty is celebrated internationally as a novelist and short story writer who produced most of his work in English, yet published the iconic Irish‑language collection Dúil (Desire) in 1953. His nephew, the writer and journalist Breandán Ó hEithir, records that it was this book that gave Liam the greatest satisfaction (1977, 76). Although some Irish‑language writers and activists resented O’Flaherty’s choice to write largely in English (O’Leary 2004, 436–38), discerning early critics paid close attention to his Irish‑language short fiction. The story “Bás na Bó” (“The Cow’s Death”) appeared in the Gaelic League journal Fáinne an Lae in July 1925, where the paper’s writer‑editor, Pádhraic Ó Domhnalláin, introduced it thus: “Muna bhfuil dul amudha mór orainn atá sgríobhnóir úr againn a ardóchas an Ghaedhilg go hard i gcúrsaí litridheachta. Dánaidhe é, go barra a mhéar, dar linn.”

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