Sean O Tuama Seán Ó Tuama, who has died aged 80, was a writer and former Professor of Irish Literature at University College Cork.
A poet, dramatist and critic, he was perhaps best known for his 1981 work, An Duanaire: Poems of the Dispossessed, written in collaboration with Thomas Kinsella. He is known also for inspiring a new generation of poets in Irish, most notably Michael Davitt, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill and Gabriel Rosenstock and later, poets such as Louis de Paor and Colm Breathnach.
In addition to writing and teaching, he was actively involved in the Irish language movement. In the early 1960s he published a pamphlet vigorously defending compulsory Irish. In 1971 he took issue with the Department of Education's policy towards Institiúid Teangeolaíochta Éireann and resigned as a council member of the institute.
In 1973 he warned that implementation by the then coalition government of Fine Gael policy on Irish would be "socially divisive". A year later he claimed that Conor Cruise O'Brien's plans for broadcasting "could be interpreted as a downgrading of the role of Irish". His attitude to Fine Gael had not softened when the party returned to government in the 1980s, and he complained that insufficient funds were allocated to supporting official Irish language policy.
By this time official policy was geared to the creation of a bilingual society, but Ó Tuama retained an emotional attachment to an Irish-speaking Ireland. "I couldn't write poetry or plays in English myself," he said in 1984. "Can you really be Irish without speaking Irish?"
Born in Cork on January 28th, 1926, he was the third eldest of the nine children of Aodh Ó Tuama and Eibhlín Ní Éigearta. His father was a travelling teacher of Irish, working for the Gaelic League. His mother, a member of Cumann na mBan, took part in the 1916 Rising in Enniscorthy, Co Wexford. Before that she taught Irish for the Gaelic League in London, Micheál Mac Liammóir being her most famous pupil.
He was educated at the North Monastery Christian Brothers School and at University College Cork, where he studied Irish and English and was taught by Daniel Corkery whom he described as "the best teacher of literature [ he] had met or would meet".
He took his BA degree at 19.
When he started teaching at UCC, critical analysis of literature in Irish was practically non-existent. "There were virtually no critical essays extant at the level required, no training available at undergraduate or postgraduate level which would allow one to present writing in Irish as an aesthetic act," he recalled.
He did much to remedy the situation, and was an inspiration for young writers in Irish and in English at UCC, where his seminars on modern poetry became working sessions on aesthetic judgment and issues of structure.
His Nuabhéarsaíocht (1950), an anthology of modern poetry written in Irish, highlighted the artistic integrity of new poets such as Seán Ó Riordáin, Máirtín Ó Direáin and Máire Mhac an tSaoi, while also noting the modernism of older poets such as Liam Gógan and Séamas (sic) Ó hAodha.
His important scholarly work, An Grá in Amhráin na nDaoine (1960), analysed Gaelic love-song, pointing out its debt to European courtly love conventions but assessing also its originality and genius.
A feeling that the idealism that launched the Irish state had been betrayed featured in one of his works, a view that mirrored his political outlook, while An Bás i dTír na nÓg (1988) contains poems in praise of the hurler Christy Ring.
A founder of the drama group, Compántas Chorcaí, in the mid-1950s, he spent a year in France studying modern theatre. Influenced by developments in European theatre, and drawing in particular on the Brechtian model, he wrote plays in Irish that combined song, direct narration and swift transitions in mood.
A visiting professor at Harvard and Oxford, he also lectured in Canada. A member of the Arts Council, he chaired the working party that produced The Arts in Irish Education (1979) and was chairman of Bord na Gaeilge when it drafted Plean Gníomhaíochta don Ghaeilge 1983-1986.
His "enthusiasms" ranged from Arkle to the works of Franco Zeffirelli and the food, wines and culture of France and Italy.
His selected poems, Rogha Dánta, was published in 1997. In his review of the book Michael Davitt described the poems as "among the best crafted" in either Irish or English since the 1940s.
He is survived by his wife, Beití (née Dinan) and sons Finín, Barra, Aodh Óg, Eoin and Ciarán.
Seán Ó Tuama: born January 28th, 1926; died September 14th, 2006