Seumas or Seamus O'Sullivan (born James Sullivan Starkey; 17 July 1879 – 24 March 1958) was an Irish poet and editor of '' The Dublin Magazine''. His father, William Starkey (1836-1918), a physician, was also a poet and a friend of

George Sigerson George Sigerson (11 January 1836 – 17 February 1925) was an Irish physician, scientist, writer, politician and poet. He was a leading light in the Irish Literary Revival of the late 19th century in Ireland. Doctor and scientist Sigerson was ...

. He was born in

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 ...

and spent his adult life in the suburb of

Rathgar Rathgar (), is a suburb of Dublin in Ireland. It was originally a village which from 1862 was part of the township of Rathmines and Rathgar; it was absorbed by the growing city and became a suburb in 1930. It lies about three kilometres south o ...

. In 1926, he married the artist Estella Solomons, sister of Bethel Solomons. Her parents were opposed to the marriage as Seumas was not Jewish.William Murphy and Bridget Hourican
'O'Sullivan, Seumas'
in ''The Dictionary of Irish Biography'' (2009) His books include ''Twilight People'' (1905), ''Verses Sacred and Profane'' (1908), ''The Earth Lover'' (1909), ''Selected Lyrics'' (1910), ''Collected Poems'' (1912), ''Requiem'' (1917), ''Common Adventures'' (1926), ''The Lamplighter'' (1929), ''Personal Talk'' (1936), ''Poems'' (1938), ''Collected Poems'' (1940), and ''Dublin Poems'' (1946). Terence de Vere White praised him as "a true poet", and was critical of W. B. Yeats for leaving him out of his anthology of Irish poets, which he thought a particularly strange decision since Yeats and O'Sullivan were friends, although they quarrelled from time to time. In 1936 a version of a play by Irish playwright Teresa Deevy called ''The King of Spain's Daughter'' was included in '' The Dublin Magazine'' which was edited by O'Sullivan. Seumas O'Sullivan and B.J. Brimmer Company were accredited within the 'Acknowledgments' of ''People and Music'' by Thomasine C. McGehee - published by Allyn and Bacon in the Junior High School Series, edited by James M. Glass, 1929 and 1931 respectively - for both (the frontispiece) ''In Mercer Street'' and the excerpt from ''Ballad of a Fiddler'' (page 93). He had a great admiration for

Patrick Kavanagh Patrick Kavanagh (21 October 1904 – 30 November 1967) was an Irish poet and novelist. His best-known works include the novel ''Tarry Flynn'', and the poems " On Raglan Road" and "The Great Hunger". He is known for his accounts of Irish life t ...

, and in the 1940s he was one of the very few Irish editors who was prepared to publish his poetry. O'Sullivan was a friend of most of the leading literary figures in Dublin, including

William Butler Yeats William Butler Yeats (13 June 186528 January 1939) was an Irish poet, dramatist, writer and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival and became a pillar of the Irish liter ...

, James Stephens and

George William Russell George William Russell (10 April 1867 – 17 July 1935), who wrote with the pseudonym Æ (often written AE or A.E.), was an Irish writer, editor, critic, poet, painter and Irish nationalist. He was also a writer on mysticism, and a centr ...

. His "at homes" on Sunday afternoons were a leading feature of Dublin literary life, as were Russell's Sunday evenings and Yeats's Monday evenings. He was inclined to be quarrelsome, due to his heavy drinking: on one occasion he insulted James Stephens publicly at a literary dinner. Even the kind-hearted Russell admitted that "Seumas drinks too much"; Yeats' verdict was that "the trouble with Seumas is that when he's not drunk, he's sober".

Musical settings

O'Sullivan was also friendly with the composer E J Moeran, whose ''Six Poems by Seumas O'Sullivan'' (1944) is his most substantial solo vocal work, and arguably his finest.Hold Trevor. ''Parry to Finzi: Twenty English Song-Composers'' (2002), p. 389-90 Moeran also published 'Invitation in autumn' (1943) as a separate song. With its straightforward language and direct imagery, his poetry was attractive to composers, particularly his most popular poem 'The Piper' ('A piper in the streets today') which was set by

Peter Crossley-Holland Peter Crossley-Holland (born 28 January 1916, London; died 27 April 2001, London) was a composer and ethnomusicologist. He wrote several books on the music of Tibetan Buddhism and composed music in ethnic styles including Celtic. Early life an ...

, Michael Head,

Ivor Gurney Ivor Bertie Gurney (28 August 1890 – 26 December 1937) was an English poet and composer, particularly of songs. He was born and raised in Gloucester. He suffered from bipolar disorder through much of his life and spent his last 15 years in ps ...

, Norman Peterkin and

Vaughan Williams Ralph Vaughan Williams, (; 12 October 1872– 26 August 1958) was an English composer. His works include operas, ballets, chamber music, secular and religious vocal pieces and orchestral compositions including nine symphonies, written over ...

External links

O'Sullivan at the Princess Grace Irish Library
*Seamus O'Sullivan a
The Teresa Deevy Archive

Seumas O'Sullivan Collection
at

Harry Ransom Center The Harry Ransom Center (until 1983 the Humanities Research Center) is an archive, library and museum at the University of Texas at Austin, specializing in the collection of literary and cultural artifacts from the Americas and Europe for the pu ...

Letters received by Seumas O'Sullivan as editor of the Dublin Magazine (MS P298)Kenneth Spencer Research Library
University of Kansas.
Finding aid to Mary Louisa Sutliff papers, including O’Sullivan correspondence, at Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Osullivan, Seumas 1879 births 1958 deaths Irish poets People from Rathgar Members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood Irish magazine founders