Douglas Hyde

Douglas Hyde 1860-1949, Irish scholar and political leader. He was largely responsible for the revival of the Irish language and literature through his founding of the Gaelic League in 1893. After teaching modern Irish for many years (1909-32), Hyde became, in 1938, the president of Eire. He held the office until 1945. Known by his Gaelic name, An Craoibhin Aoibhinn, he was the author of many works, including a Literary History of Ireland (1899) and Love Songs of Connacht (1894).

Bibliography: See biography by J. Dunleavy (1991).

Hyde, Douglas (1860–1949), Irish writer and pioneer in the Irish Revival, became the first professor of Irish at the National University in 1908. Several of his writings, including Love Songs of Connacht (1893) and A Literary History of Ireland (1892), together with several volumes of verse translations from the Gaelic, were highly influential. He became a vice-president of the Abbey Theatre company. He was the first president of Eire (1938–45).

Hyde, Douglas (1860–1949), academic and cultural revivalist. The son of a Church of Ireland clergyman, Hyde was brought up first in Co. Sligo and then, from 1867, at Frenchpark, Co. Roscommon, both areas rich in antiquities and where some spoken Irish survived. He entered Trinity College in 1880, switching from an initial course of divinity to law. ‘The Necessity for De‐anglicizing the Irish People’ (1892), his inaugural lecture as president of the National Literary Society, called for action to arrest the decay of Irish, denounced the imitation of English manners, but also recommended Anglo‐Irish literature as superior to imported mass‐circulation works. Though not the founder of the Gaelic League, Hyde became its first president in 1893. He was professor of Irish at University College, Dublin, 1909–32, a member of the Irish Free State Senate from 1925, and first president of Ireland 1938–45.

Hyde published extensively, drawing both on oral tradition and on manuscript sources. His most important collections included Love Songs of Connacht (1893) and The Religious Songs of Connacht (1906). He collaborated with Yeats and Lady Gregory on a number of theatrical productions, commencing with Casadh an tSúgáin (‘The Twisting of the Rope’) (1901), the first Irish‐language play performed in a theatre, and published a highly successful Literary History of Ireland (1899).

Hyde's public insistence that the Gaelic League should avoid politics, leading eventually to his resignation as president in 1915, has encouraged the image of an unworldly and apolitical idealist. Such a portrayal hardly does justice to the organizational and strategic capacity displayed in Hyde's promotion of the league, or to the skills as a public performer revealed in his highly successful fund‐raising visit to America during 1905. Hyde's own political sympathies were nationalist, and he was to comment subsequently that he had sought to resist the politicization of the league only because he did not foresee the triumph of Sinn Féin.

Bibliography

Dunleavy, J. E. and and G. W. , Douglas Hyde: A Maker of Modern Ireland (1991)