Ó Luanaigh (O'Looney), Brian (1828–1901), Celticist, was born 28 August 1828 in Móin Riail near Ennistymon, Co. Clare, second youngest child of agent Uilliam Ó Luanaigh and his wife, Máire Nic Ionnrachtaigh. The family was relatively affluent. His father was employed on the Stackpoole estate in Móin Riail and his mother was a widow who brought a dowry of £1,000 to her second marriage. Ó Luanaigh received his earliest education at the model farm school founded by the earls of Inchiquin in Cathair Seirgin, north Co. Clare. There he studied subjects such as farming, agricultural engineering, surveying, English and English literature. He excelled as a student and regularly came top of his class. It is unclear when and how he learned classical Irish or how to read Irish-language manuscripts.
At the age of twenty he took part in the failed Young Ireland uprising led by William Smith O'Brien (qv) at Ballingarry, Co. Tipperary on 29 July 1848. On O'Brien's defeat, Ó Luanaigh and a number of others succeeded in escaping to Limerick where they boarded the Neiro and sailed for the USA. In New York he was the guest of Sir Otho O'Brien on Fifth Avenue. His involvement in politics appears to have ended at this time. In the aftermath of the uprising a rumour spread that Ó Luanaigh had been killed and as a result he was waked both in his family home in Co. Clare and by a young lady from Ballingarry, Máire Condún, in a lamentation called ‘The breach of Ballingarry. A ballad of 1848. Entitled Mary Condon's Lamentation’. Ó Luanaigh composed a song about her during his journey to the USA: ‘Addressed to a lady friend – to Mary mo Chroidhe – at sea’. She apparently died while he was abroad. He returned to Ireland after a short period and worked as director of rural industry with the Co. Clare agricultural board. He is believed to have remained in this post until asked by Smith O'Brien to assist him in examining Irish-language manuscripts in Brussels.
From 1857 he began copying manuscripts for Smith O'Brien who had returned to Ireland from exile firstly in Tasmania and subsequently in Brussels. Most of the transcription work was carried out between 1858 and 1864. On his death, O'Brien willed seventeen manuscripts to the Royal Irish Academy (RIA), half in Ó Luanaigh's hand. He composed laments on the death of O'Brien and his wife (Lucy MSS). He also composed a number of poems including Fáilte na Gaoidhilge which he sent to his fellow scribe Domhnall Mac Consaidín.
Amongst his other patrons was Major W. E. A. Mac Donnell from Ennis, Co. Clare, for whom he compiled and edited a collection of poems relating to the Mac Donnell family who were originally from Scotland and Antrim and had settled in Co. Clare. John O'Daly (qv) published this under the title A collection of poems written on different occasions by the Clare bards in honour of the MacDonnells of Kilkee and Kilrone in the county of Clare (1863). Commenting on the poems in a letter he sent to Major Mac Donnell he stated: ‘the greatest part of them have been copied by me from mutilated time-worn manuscripts’ (Feasta). He also provided a translation of the Táin for the poet Aubrey de Vere (qv).
The majority of his scholarly endeavours consisted of editions of stories from Irish-language manuscripts together with English translations and appeared in the RIA's Proceedings. An article entitled ‘The protecting corselet of Mary’ appeared in the Irish Ecclesiastical Record, vi (1870), 320–22. A text from a Brussels manuscript transcribed by Eugene O'Curry (qv) entitled ‘On the kings and chieftains buried in Clonmacnois’ was published in George Petrie's (qv) Christian inscriptions in the Irish language (1872). His edition of Michael Comyn's (qv) ‘Laoi Oisín i dTír na nÓg. The Land of Youth’ was published in Transactions of the Ossianic Society (1859). Ó Luanaigh's translation of this ballad is believed to have inspired W. B. Yeats (qv) to write ‘The wanderings of Oisin’. He was a member of the Ossianic Society and in April 1871 was elected member of the RIA. The National Library of Ireland (NLI), the RIA and University College Cork (UCC) Library hold Ó Luanaigh's manuscripts.
Eugene O'Curry regarded him highly as a scholar. The Catholic University appointed him lecturer in Irish language and literature in November 1873 and afterwards professor of Irish language, literature and archaeology. The appointment was surrounded by controversy, however, with attempts to create a separate chair of Irish literature. The episcopal board of the university had appointed Monsignor Patrick Moran (qv), nephew of Cardinal Cullen (qv), archbishop of Dublin and chancellor of the university, to the chair of Irish literature and this would have forced Ó Luanaigh to resign but he remained in the post until c.1882. Unlike the majority of professors in the Catholic University, he was not appointed to the Jesuit-run University College Dublin (UCD) in 1883.
A founding member of the Society for the Preservation of the Irish Language (Cumann Buan-Choimeádta na Gaeilge), he acted as chairman at the first meeting on 29 December 1877. He attended a three-day conference organised by the society in Dublin in August 1882 and was responsible for tabling a number of proposals: that Irish be taught in teacher training colleges and be compulsory for all teachers appointed by the national board; that Irish be taught in all schools, particularly in Gaeltacht areas; that pupils and teachers receive prizes for competence in the language; that textbooks and primers be provided in Irish; that all colleges be obliged to appoint at least one person competent to teach through Irish and that a chair in Irish be created in all colleges and universities. The meeting passed these proposals unanimously. He continued as honorary secretary of the society until his death. He was so concerned with the state of the language in the schools and colleges that he sent a long letter to the lord lieutenant, the marquis of Londonderry (qv), on 27 August 1889.
Ó Luanaigh moved to Crumlin, Co. Dublin, in 1870. In June 1871 he married Siobhán Nic Chuirtín, a relation of Aodh Buí Mac Cruitín (qv) and Aindrias Mac Cruitín (qv). The couple had four children, two daughters and two sons. Ó Luanaigh died in Crumlin 1 December 1901.
More information on this entry is available at the National Database of Irish-language biographies (Ainm.ie).