O'Brien, Paul (c.1763–1820), poet, priest, and professor of Irish, was born in Moynalty, Co Meath, son of Cathal O'Brien, farmer, and his wife Máiréad Downs. Among his ancestors were a great-grandfather, William O'Brien, a poet; and a great-grandmother was a sister of Turlough Carolan (qv). He was educated for a time at a hedge school near his home before setting up his own school on the borders of Co. Monaghan and Co. Armagh. It is clear from his poetry that at the time he had a distinct fondness for women and for drinking, but he is thought to have left this behind him when he was ordained a priest at Maynooth College in 1803. He had become a teacher of Irish in the college in 1801; in July 1804 he was made professor of Irish, and was paid £60 a year (from an endowment provided by John Keenan) until his death. He made huge efforts to encourage students and staff to use the Irish language as often as possible in the college, rather than French, which was widely spoken.
In 1809 he published a Practical grammar of the Irish language, which was later criticised as poor by such scholars as John O'Donovan (qv). It includes seven verses in Irish at the start of the book which exhort the youth of Ireland to study their native tongue, and offers something of an insight into the dialect of Meath. He also wrote an introduction in verse form to Edward O'Reilly's Irish–English dictionary. Some of his verses appear in collected works such as Duanaire na Midhe (1914) and Amhráin na Midhe (1933). He joined the short-lived ‘Gaelic Society’ in Dublin in 1807 and one of his poems was included in the first and only volume of its transactions, which appeared in 1808. He was also a member of the Iberno-Celtic Society, founded in 1818, and of the Harp Society. He died, probably on 18 May 1820 (Freeman's Journal, 20 May 1820), although other sources give his date of death as 13 April (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2004).
More information on this entry is available at the National Database of Irish-language biographies (Ainm.ie).