Darach Ó Séaghdha (; born 5 November 1977) is an Irish writer,

podcast A podcast is a Radio program, program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. Typically, a podcast is an Episode, episodic series of digital audio Computer file, files that users can download to a personal device or str ...

er and

Irish language Irish (Standard Irish: ), also known as Irish Gaelic or simply Gaelic ( ), is a Celtic language of the Indo-European language family. It is a member of the Goidelic languages of the Insular Celtic sub branch of the family and is indigenous ...

activist. He is the author of ''Motherfoclóir: Dispatches from a Not So Dead Language'', which won 'Ireland AM Popular Non-Fiction Book of the Year' in the 2017

Irish Book Awards The Irish Book Awards are Irish literary awards given annually to books and authors in various categories. It is the only literary award supported by all-Irish bookstores. The primary sponsor is An Post, the state owned postal service in Ireland ...

Biography

Ó Séaghdha grew up in

Rathfarnham Rathfarnham () is a Southside (Dublin), southside suburb of Dublin, Republic of Ireland, Ireland in County Dublin. It is south of Terenure, east of Templeogue, and is in the postal districts of Dublin 14 and Dublin 16, 16. It is between the Lo ...

, a suburb of

Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...

, in a multi-lingual household. His father, a linguist, and mother used to speak Irish together but spoke English to their children. When Ó Séaghdha's father became very ill, Ó Séaghdha became interested in learning Irish and used Twitter to share interesting Irish phrases and words he came across. Ó Séaghdha describes Irish as "the amazing buried treasure". In his writing he wants to show people how they, through Irish, can make sense of the world around them, through words and phrases that do not exist in the English language. In the 2017 Irish Book Awards, his book ''Motherfoclóir: Dispatches from a Not So Dead Language'' (Head of Zeus, 2017) won the award for Ireland AM Popular Non-Fiction Book of the Year. The follow-up to ''Motherfoclóir'', published in 2018, which carries the name '' Baby: Dispatches from a Rising Language'', explores the very new and very old parts of the Irish language from a personal perspective, covering the topics multilingualism,

Brehon Law Early Irish law, also called Brehon law (from the old Irish word breithim meaning judge), comprised the statutes which governed everyday life in Early Medieval Ireland. They were partially eclipsed by the Norman invasion of 1169, but underwe ...

, and especially lexicon. He runs the popular Irish-language-trivia

Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

account ''The Irish For''. He is also the main host of the podcast ''Motherfoclóir'', part of the Headstuff Podcast Network.

References

External links

* 21st-century Irish writers 21st-century Irish male writers Irish language activists Living people Irish-language writers 1977 births {{Ireland-writer-stub