Daniel Corkery Biography

Irish critic, dramatist, and short-story writer, born in Cork, educated at St Patrick's College, Dublin. In 1908 he founded, together with other nationalists, the Cork Dramatic Society, which produced plays in both Irish and English. Corkery's published plays include The Labour Leader (1920), The Yellow Bittern and Other Plays (1920), and Resurrection (1924). His collections of short stories, generally considered his best work, include A Munster Twilight (1916), The Hounds of Banba (1920), The Stormy Hills (1929), and Earth out of Earth (1939). As a short-story writer, he had a considerable influence on his younger contemporaries, Frank O'Connor and Sean O'Faolain. However, critical works like The Hidden Ireland (1925), on the Gaelic work of the Munster poets in the eighteenth-century, when ancient Irish culture was in the process of being ruthlessly suppressed, and Synge and Anglo-Irish Literature (1931), made the greatest impact in his own lifetime and opened up new areas of Irish literary history. He also wrote The Threshold of Quiet (1917), a novel, and The Fortunes of the Irish Language (1954). Corkery was appointed Senator by De Valera in 1951.