Ó Saothraí, Séamas (Seery, James ('Jim'))

by Linde Lunney

Ó Saothraí, Séamas (Seery, James ('Jim')) (1927–2008), historian and journalist in the Irish language, was born 13 January 1927 in Cloonagh, Ballinagore, Co. Westmeath, one of five children (two boys and three girls) of John Seery, a farmer and cattle dealer, and his wife Esther 'Hetty' (née Kenny) (d. 1992). His mother and grandmother encouraged his love of the Irish language, and inspired a lifelong interest in the way in which Irish and English were used in his native county. While attending the local St Patrick's national school in Ballinagore, he wrote an article on the folklore of his locality for the Irish Folklore Commission's national schools' scheme. On leaving primary school, he won a scholarship for St Finian's College, Mullingar, but it did not cover enough of the cost of fees and boarding, so instead he cycled six days a week to St Mary's CBS, an all-Irish secondary school in Mullingar, thirteen miles each way.

After leaving school, he went to work in a hardware shop in Dublin, then served in the defence forces during the second world war emergency, mostly at McKee Barracks in Dublin. Later he worked for CIÉ and the weekly newspaper Inniu. Successful in civil service examinations open to former soldiers, he was employed in the Department of Education, at first as a librarian. He then moved to An Gúm, the state's agency for publishing materials in the Irish language, and worked mainly as a proofreader and editor. Contact with scholars and native speakers improved his Irish significantly, and Tomás de Bhaldraithe (qv) acknowledged his important assistance in checking all the final proofs of de Bhaldraithe's English–Irish dictionary published in 1959.

For a short time from 1960, Ó Saothraí was registrar in the National Gallery of Ireland, working closely with Thomas MacGreevy (qv), but his love of the Irish language led him to take a position in 1962 as a journalist preparing material for the Irish-language, weekly RTÉ radio programme Nuacht anall, nuacht abhus. In 1972 he spent some time training the staff of the newly founded station Raidió na Gaeltachta in journalism. From the mid 1950s, Ó Saothraí published a large number of essays, stories, articles and poems in both Irish- and English-language publications, including Feasta, Comhar and the Irish Press, where he had a regular column, 'Danlann an Luain' (1966–7). He also wrote for Irish Booklore, and was editor (1976–9) of Books Ireland; he was an avid book collector and frequenter of the second-hand bookshops once common on Dublin's quays. Some of his essays were collected in an anthology, Díolaim iriseora (1970), which was generally well reviewed. He had already published a book on the National Gallery, An Dánlann Náisiúnta (1966), and Mná calma '98 (1966), on the women involved in the 1798 rebellion (later published in English as Heroines of 1798 (1998)). His translation of Michael Ryan's Treasures of Ireland (1983) was published by the RIA as Seoda na hÉireann (1985).

Ó Saothraí's research for the radio programme and his own interests in history, especially in the history of the later eighteenth century, often brought him to Belfast, and especially the Linen Hall Library, where he was friendly with the librarian, James Vitty (qv). In the late 1960s he shared the adjudication of annual ballad-singing competitions in Northern Ireland with Davy Hammond (qv); Ó Saothraí was himself a fine singer and enjoyed singing traditional Irish songs. He took early retirement from RTÉ, and went to work with his old colleague de Bhaldraithe on the RIA's Foclóir na Nua-Ghaeilge. Even after officially retiring in 1982, he continued to research in the library of the academy, and published articles and gave talks to local history societies and occasionally on radio. He encouraged younger scholars, sharing his knowledge freely and courteously, and continued his support for eighteenth-century studies and for the Irish language. He gathered materials for a work on the English and Irish speech of his home county of Westmeath, but this remained unpublished at the time of his death.

In 1992 he published a biography in Irish of the Irish-language scholar and presbyterian minister William Neilson (qv). With A. T. Q. Stewart (1929–2010) and Finlay Holmes (qv), Ó Saothraí edited and contributed to a collection of essays, Presbyterians, the United Irishmen and 1798 (2000). After years of studying eighteenth-century presbyterians, Ó Saothraí left catholicism to become a member of the presbyterian church, worshipping in Greystones, Co. Wicklow, and eventually writing a history of that congregation, which appeared anonymously in 1987. He was vice-president of the Presbyterian Historical Society, a fellow of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, and was life president of the Friends of Historic Rathdown.

Séamas Ó Saothraí died suddenly on 12 November 2008 at his home in Greystones, and was buried in the local Redford cemetery. He was survived by his wife Minella (née Sherlock), three daughters and three sons.