Professor Risteard (R. A.) Breatnach, who died on April 28th aged 89, was one of the most influential Irish scholars and academics of his generation. The former Professor of Irish Language and Literature at University College Cork built up a very important school of Irish at UCC, and many of his students went on to occupy university chairs of Irish and Celtic Studies elsewhere in Ireland and in the US.
Apart from a scholarly reputation that made him a major figure both nationally and internationally, he engaged prominently in the important education debates of the 1950s, 60s and 70s in Ireland, and wrote thoughtfully on controversial issues such as the Irish revival and higher education reform.
He was born in Urlingford, Co Kilkenny, on October 21st, 1911. The family moved to Dun Laoghaire, where he was educated by the Christian Brothers. After qualifying as a primary teacher, he entered University College Dublin and was awarded an MA with first class honours in 1939. In 1941 he married Agnes (nee O'Callaghan) from Fermoy.
In 1943 he became editor of publications in Irish in Browne & Nolan Ltd, with responsibility for the planning, preparation and superintending of all textbooks in Irish for primary and secondary schools (including Danta Mean- Teistimeireachta and Danta ArdTeistimeireachta), and for universities. His influential school edition of Seadna was prepared as part of this work. In 1945 he was appointed assistant in Early and Medieval Irish at UCD. Later that year he was appointed to the chair of Irish Language and Literature at University College Cork, a post he assumed in January 1946. In the same year he was elected a member of the Royal Irish Academy.
Following his retirement in 1981, at the age of 70, he was presented with a Festschrift, Folia Gadelica (Cork, 1983), in which all the contributions were written by former pupils.
Prof Breatnach had a lifelong commitment to scholarly research and publication. His early writings included editions of important Early Modern Irish and Modern Irish texts, published in Eigse and elsewhere. The interest in editing texts never waned and many a postgraduate student reaped the benefit of his generosity with time and advice in the preparation of editions under his direction. His philological studies drew him inevitably towards literature, and he made a number of original contributions, which included a ground-breaking essay on the sovereignty theme in Irish tradition, entitled "The Lady and the King: a theme of Irish literature" (Studies 1953), and the study entitled "The end of a tradition: a survey of eighteenth century Gaelic literature" (Studia Hibernica 1961), which remains the classic survey of Modern Irish manuscript literature. He also contributed to the RTE Thomas Davis Lectures series.
A natural linguist, he discovered his talent during early visits to the Ring Gaeltacht. As a young man he travelled widely by bicycle in the Irish-speaking parts of Cos Waterford, Cork, Kerry, Galway, Mayo, and Donegal. His origins in Kilkenny motivated him towards a full-scale study of the Irish of that area, which he submitted as his MA dissertation based on the speech of the last surviving speakers and on manuscript material. Perhaps influenced by friendship at UCD with the northern scholars Seamas O Searcaigh and J.H. Delargy, he mastered the Donegal dialect of Irish. He later concentrated on the Irish of Corca Dhuibhne.
He found unlimited scope for intellectual satisfaction in writing prolifically on problems of Irish etymology, grammar and syntax, and studies such as "The origin of the 2nd plural imperative in Northern Irish" (Eriu, Bergin Memorial Volume) are regarded as classics in the field. He also developed a special interest in Scottish Gaelic and Manx.
Prof Breatnach played an influential role in the life of UCC both as a member of the Governing Body between 1954-71, and in the Senate of the NUI, on which he sat as a member continuously between 1964-77. He did not hesitate to bring his views on matters of public policy to a wider audience when the need arose. His article "Revival of Survival?", published in Studies in 1956, subjected the Irish language policy of the State to a rigorous critique, and drew the fire of lobbyists by advocating a policy of preservation and gradual extension of the use of Irish, which, as he said, "though not the vision splendid . . . is an attainable goal that should not be beyond the powers of ordinary Irishmen to believe in and achieve". He took the argument further in 1964 in his Studies article, "Irish revival reconsidered", a critique of the inadequacies of the final report of An Coimisiun um Athbheochan na Gaeilge, An Tuarascail Dheiridh, in which he offered a series of proposals for arresting the decline of the language. In another context, he participated in a review of the Report of the Commission on Higher Education issued in 1967 as part of a forum discussion published in the Irish Journal of Education (1968), and he was prominent also in public discussion of the UCD/TCD merger proposals around that time.
Rigorously intellectual, he was also a warm and humane gentleman, who occasionally composed verse in Irish. (His lament for his former teacher Osborn Bergin, composed after his death in 1950, was published in The Irish Times, Da maireadh aon don eigse, 'Aimhirginig.) He was predeceased by his wife Agnes in 1997 and is survived by their children Gerald, Mary, Padraig, Eamann and Una.
Prof Risteard A. Breatnach: born 1911; died, April 2001