John J. O'Meara

John J. O'Meara (18 February 1915 – 12 February 2003) was an Irish classical scholar, historian of ancient and medieval philosophy (in particular Augustine and Eriugena), educationalist and writer.

Biography

O'Meara was born in Eyrecourt (Co. Galway) to Mary Donelan and Patrick O'Meara. He lost his father when he was less than one year old and had a younger brother, Paddy. He was educated at Rockwell College and Garbally, Ballinasloe, becoming for a time a Jesuit seminarist. He describes his childhood in hard times, the terror brought by the British "Black and Tans" and by the subsequent Irish civil war - but also the early experience of the beauty of nature - in his autobiographical book The Singing Masters (a collection of short stories, Remembering Eyrecourt. Vignettes and Tales of earlier Days, Eyrecourt 2003, also describes the world of his childhood), where the difficult experience of following and at last ending his engagement as a Jesuit novice is also described. He took an M. A. degree in classics at University College Dublin in 1939 and was awarded a scholarship allowing him to complete a Doctorate in Philosophy at Oxford University (1942-45). The Singing Masters describes war-time Oxford and the antiquated (and quaint) conditions in which he studied there. His thesis concerned Augustine's use of Porphyry and was later revised and published in Paris (1959). Returning to Dublin he was appointed Professor of Latin at University College, Dublin in 1948, where he remained until his retirement in 1984. He held visiting appointments at the Institute of Advanced Studies ( Princeton), Dumbarton Oaks (Harvard University) and Vassar College. In Ireland he played a major role in the effort to modernize education in the schools and universities, in particular as regards the teaching of Latin and Irish and the collaboration between University College, Dublin and Trinity College, Dublin. His ideas were ahead of their time in the conservative and Church-dominated atmosphere in Ireland at the time. He contributed to the founding of the Irish Association of Classical Teachers in 1959. In 1954 he published The Young Augustine (many re-editions), an introduction to reading Augustine's Confessions which has kept its value. As.well as being a leading internationally recognized scholar on Augustine, he did much to further the study of the early medieval Irish philosopher John Scotus Eriugena, founding the Society for the Promotion of Eriugenian Studies in 1970 which stimulated a spectacular development in the study of Eriugena. He published a monograph on the philosopher, Eriugena (1988) and was working, when he died, on finishing a complete edition and English translation of Eriugena's masterpiece, the Periphyseon. He also published English translations of Latin texts important to Ireland, Giraldus Cambrensis' Topography of Ireland and The Voyage of Saint Brendan. O'Meara was president of the Alliance Française in Ireland and was awarded the Légion d'Honneur.. He as a member of the Royal Irish Academy and of other international scholarly associations. In 1947 he married Odile de Barthes de Montfort, with whom he had three children and with whom he published a little book presenting new discoveries concerning Bernadette of Lourdes (Ordeal at Lourdes).

Select bibliography

References

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