Photos

Séamas Ó Liatháin (with the kind permission of the National Folklore Collection, UCD)

Biographical Note

Ó Liatháin (Lyons, Ó Liaháin), Séamas (James) (1877-1934): Séamas Ó Liatháin was born in Curragh, Ballybacon parish, county Tipperary, on 16 September 1877. He attended the local school. He was living in Curragh with his family for the censuses of 1901 [http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/reels/nai003909857/] and 1911 [http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/reels/nai003298453/]. His father, Darby (Jeremiah/Diarmuid) Lyons, was a farmer. His mother was Margaret (Mary) Lyons (née Doody). Séamas was a farmer also. He married Ellen (Helen) Hogan, of nearby Knockperry, in Newcastle parish, on 24 February 1906. They had six children, two of whom died in infancy. Séamas died of pneumonia on 6 January 1934. His wife died from the same illness less than a fortnight before him and they were both buried in her family’s plot in the old cemetery in Newcastle. See Proinsias Ó Drisceoil, 'Séamas Ó Liatháin: Labhairt agus Taifeadadh na Gaeilge i nGaeltacht Thiobraid Árann', An Linn Bhuí 20 (2016), for further information on this speaker and on the last generation of native Irish speakers in county Tipperary.

As well as the two stories from Séamas that are available on this site, Doegen recorded Séamas’s telling of the Parable of the Prodigal Son; this recording does not survive, however, as the wax matrix was destroyed en route to Germany and no shellac disc was manufactured.

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