Padraic Colum
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Pádraic Colum (December 8,1881-January 111972) was an Irish playwright, novelist, folklorist and author of childrens' literature. He was born at a workhouse in Longford run by his father. The family moved to Sandycove in Dublin, where his father became the manager of Sandycove and Glasthule railway station. His son attended the local national school.
At the age of seventeen, he passed an exam for a clerkship in the Irish Railway Clearing House. He began writing plays around this time. He was awarded a five year scholarship to University College Dublin by a weathy American benefactor Thomas Kelly.
He was awarded a prize by Cumann na nGaedhael for his anti-enlistment play "The Saxon Shillin'". Through his plays he becamed involved with the National Theatre Society and became involved in the founding of the Abbey Theatre, writing several of its' early productions.
He published several poems in Arthur Griffiths' paper The United Irishman this time, with The Poor Scholar bringing him to the attention of WB Yeats. He became a friend of Yeats and Lady Gregory.
In 1912, he married Mary Maguire, a fellow student from UCD. Together with David Houston and Thomas MacDonagh, they established The Irish Review in 1911.
Pádraic and Molly emigrated to the United States in 1914.
A contract for childrens literature with Macmillan Publishers made him financially secure for the rest of his life.
From 1930 to 1933 they lived in Paris and Nice, meeting James Joyce, becoming involved in the transcription of Finnegans Wake.
Molly died in 1957 and Pádraic finished Our Friend James Joyce, which they had worked on together before her death. It was published in 1958.
He adopted the form of Noh drama in his later plays.
He died in Enfield, Connecticut and was buried in St. Fintan's Cemetery, Sutton.
Plays
- The Saxon Shillin' (1902)
- The Land (1905)
- The Fiddlers' House (1907)
- Thomas Muskerry (1910)
- Mogu the Wanderer (1917)
- The Strindbergian Balloon (1929)
Memoir
- Our Friend James Joyce(1958) (With Molly Colum)
External links
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