O'Donohue, John Joseph (1956–2008), priest, philosopher and spiritual writer, was born 2 January 1956 in Ennistymon hospital, Co. Clare, eldest of three sons and one daughter of Patrick O'Donohue (d. 1970s), a small farmer and stonemason (whom John remembered as a profound influence who abided in the 'realm of the mystically sacred' (Guardian, 15 April 2008)), and his wife Josephine ('Josie') (née Dunleavy; d. 2011); the family lived in Formoyle, in the Caher valley near Black Head. Reared amid the rugged karst landscape of the Burren in close proximity to the sea – he was especially struck by the coexistence of bleak limestone shelves and pockets of tender, delicately hued flora – John was instilled from childhood with a deep sensitivity for landscape generally, both as physical actuality and as metaphor, a sensibility that formed a prominent motif of his adult spirituality; stone, both raw and worked, was a favoured image.
After attending national school in Fanore, O'Donohue boarded at St Mary's College, Galway city (1969–74), and then entered the national catholic seminary of St Patrick's College, Maynooth, where he graduated BA in English and philosophy (1977) and BD (1980). A member of the college debating team, he was influenced by the ferment of progressive ideas and appetite for social and institutional change that affected Irish campuses, including Maynooth, in the 1970s. Ordained for the diocese of Galway (6 June 1981), he remained at Maynooth to complete an MA on Hegelian philosophy (awarded 1982). A fluent Irish-speaker, he served as curate in Rossaveal, in the Connemara gaeltacht (1982–5). Undertaking doctoral studies at the University of Tübingen, West Germany (1986–90) – the university at which Hegel himself studied – he was awarded a Ph.D. summa cum laude in philosophical theology (1990) for a dissertation developing a concept of personhood as mediation of the two fundamental aspects of the self, individuality and universality (i.e., relationality), through a philosophical and theological reinterpretation of the dialectic of consciousness in Hegel's Phenomenology of spirit. Adumbrating motifs of his own later popular writings, O'Donohue emphasised that growth through experience is essential to the personal self, and that selfhood must combine with otherness to become personhood. O'Donohue's study, published as Person als Vermittlung (1993), was commended in the Review of Metaphysics (June 1998) as not alone an important contribution to Hegel studies, but for 'breaking new ground in our thinking about consciousness, the self, and what it is to be a person' (p. 954). (Regarding Hegel's thought as a guide to living, O'Donohue was especially attracted to his dialectical acceptance of the opaque aspects of consciousness and experience, his embrace of conflict and contradiction; noting that most people are crippled by fear of contradiction, which they seek to excise from themselves with a 'moral scalpel', he asserted that 'contradiction is the spur of creativity' (Ir. Times, 30 January 1993).) During the 1990s he began postdoctoral work in Ireland on the medieval philosopher-mystic Meister Eckhart.
Serving as curate in Carron, New Quay, Co. Clare (early 1990s), O'Donohue initiated what became an annual celebration of an Easter dawn mass, accompanied by traditional musicians, in the ruins of the thirteenth-century Cistercian abbey of Corcomroe. He became chairman of the Burren Action Group, which campaigned successfully throughout the 1990s against government plans to build an interpretative centre at Mullaghmore in the Burren national park; O'Donohue castigated the plans as a 'blasphemy', and expressed fears that the west of Ireland might be developed as a weekend 'playground' for 'saturated Europeans' (ibid.). Transferred to successive curacies in Moycullen, Co. Galway, and Knocknacarra, a newly developed suburb within the parish of Salthill outside Galway city, he continued to attract large numbers to his masses, including non-parishioners and otherwise non-practising catholics, with his all-welcoming, inclusive outlook and articulate, thoughtful, consoling sermons. ('I was trying to refine their fingers so that they could undo so much of the false netting crippling their own spirits' (Independent, 27 February 2008).) He published a collection of poetry, Echoes of memory (1994), and lyrical, meditative essays on each of the four elements of nature published as separate booklets (1994–5; reissued posthumously as the single-volume The elements: reflections on nature (2010)). O'Donohue's maverick interpretation of priestly ministry distressed his ecclesiastical superiors, among whom suspicions abounded of his growing reputation and personal charisma. (His difficulties with authority appear to have coincided with the elevation of John McLoughlin to the see of Galway in March 1993, following the resignation of the liberal prelate Eamon Casey in May 1992, occasioned by the revelation that Casey in the 1970s had fathered a son, and allegations that he was diverting church funds towards his son's support.) One clerical supporter, Fr Kevin Hegarty, wrote that O'Donohue's superiors endeavoured to 'clip his wings by imprisoning him in a busy curacy' (Ir. Times, 8 January 2008).
By the mid 1990s O'Donohue wished to minister part-time so as to devote himself to writing. When this was refused, he withdrew from active ministry, but seems not to have formally retired from public priestly ministry till 2000/01. (The Irish catholic directory lists him from 1996 to 2001 among priests of the Galway diocese elsewhere, with an address at Gleann Treasna (Glentrasna), Camus, Co. Galway (his home for the rest of his life), and ceases listing him from 2002.) Obtaining a lectureship (1995–7) at Galway Regional Technical College (latterly Galway–Mayo Institute of Technology), he designed and taught a diploma course on heritage studies, and designed the syllabus for a national diploma in religious studies.
O'Donohue attained instant and widespread fame with the publication of Anam ċara: spiritual wisdom from the Celtic world (1997; American subtitle: A book of Celtic wisdom), which became an international bestseller (reprinted six times in its first year), and its author a 'new age' celebrity. The Irish-language title translating as 'soul friend' – 'a person to whom you could reveal the hidden intimacies of your life' (p. 16) – O'Donohue's book explored 'the presence and power of inner and outer friendship' (p. 15). Characterising what he called 'the Celtic mind' as being neither discursive nor systematic nor dualist, he held that 'the Celtic imagination' articulated an inner friendship embracing 'nature, divinity, underworld and human world as one' (p. 16), which he discussed in a 'lyrical-speculative' approach. His chapters – arranged in the circular rhythm beloved by the Celtic imagination – treated interpersonal friendship, friendship with the body (noting the irony that a religion based on incarnation had grievously sinned against the body), inner friendship, work as a poetics of growth, friendship with ageing, and friendship with death. These six chapters circled around 'a hidden, silent seventh chapter which embraces the ancient namelessness at the heart of the human self. Here resides the unsayable, the ineffable' (p. 18).
The success of Anam ċara allowed O'Donohue to resign his lectureship (his application for a year's leave of absence having been denied) and devote his full time to writing and speaking. He published four more books. Eternal echoes: exploring our hunger to belong (1998; American subtitle: Celtic reflections on our yearning to belong) discussed post-modern isolation and was especially addressed to the lost and dejected ('lives where belonging is torn and longing is numbed'). It inspired an eponymous album of instrumental music (2001) by the English composer John Barry (1933–2011). The poetry collection Conamara blues (2000) included fifteen 'Rosary sonnets' – one for each of the mysteries – and 'Voices at the funeral', inspired by O'Donohue's personal experience of the most spiritually and emotionally poignant of priestly functions. Divine beauty: the invisible embrace (2003; American title: Beauty: the invisible embrace: rediscovering the true sources of compassion, serenity, and hope) mined the classical, medieval and Celtic traditions of music, art, literature, nature and language to reflect on the concept of beauty in all its guises. (O'Donohue finding the completion of the book especially challenging, his mother, on asked about his wellbeing, replied: 'Ah, poor John – beauty has him killed!' (Doolan, 7).) His last publication, launched six weeks before his death, was Benedictus: a book of blessings (2007; American title: To bless the space between us: a book of blessings (spring 2008)), a collection of blessings appropriate for significant moments in private and communal life in a post-ritualistic world. (O'Donohue defined blessing as an invocation of healing and protective love, and believed all people have the power to lay on hands and invoke blessing.)
Their appeal ranging widely, 'from ageing nuns to exuberant eco-warriors' (Ir. Times, 8 January 2008), O'Donoghue's books were endorsed by politicians, pop stars, and media personalities. He lectured throughout the English-speaking world, commanding an especially large following for his books and personal appearances in the USA. He gave two spiritual retreats annually, one in Ireland, the other in America. His celebrity coinciding with the Irish 'Celtic tiger' economic boom, in interviews and published commentary he deplored the culture of avaricious, competitive, self-defining consumerism, the social polarities between poverty and affluence, the reduction of politics to market economics, the 'religion of rush', and the 'cult of immortality' promoted by the advertising industry; he ascribed the impatient, restless, neurotic character of post-modern existence to the plethora of vacuous chatter and the absence of silence. Accusing the institutional catholic church of a 'pathological fear of the feminine', he criticised the 'frightened functionaries of institutional religion', who cleverly controlled the sources of spiritual power, ignoring the mystical flame of faith in favour of a 'manufactured consensus'. Because traditional Irish catholicism emphasised duty, devotion and moral prohibition, devoid of an intellectual foundation, the crisis in the Irish church had left people adrift and 'psychically homeless'. While open to diverse varieties of religious experience and thought, he rejected Christian and other fundamentalisms as atavist movements each promoting one way only. He warned that the 'smorgasbord' of 'new age' spirituality was prone to narcissistic self-indulgence if it refrained from engaging with the sufferings of others.
O'Donohue in his books composed a prose that was averse to rapid reading, texturing his style to induce quiet reflection. His writings contributed to the widely prevalent syncretic spirituality that emerged in the last third of the twentieth century (more belatedly in Ireland than elsewhere), representing a desire for transcendental experience amid a materialistic modern culture, informed by a belief system that was individually constructed and averse to prescribed dogma, but open to influence from the diverse traditions made available by mass education and globalised consciousness. His intellectual training providing his work a firm philosophical/theological foundation, he exercised in print the capacity of the gifted preacher to expound complex and subtle philosophical concepts in a simple language accessible to a large audience, employing homely imagery, vivid metaphor, and illustrative parable (but flirting dangerously at times with the glibly sentimental). His avoidance of specifically catholic or Christian terminology assured for his books a readership that transcended denominational allegiances or backgrounds.
His propagation of a 'Celtic spirituality' situates his work within a current navigated by such scholars of comparative mythology as Joseph Campbell (1904–87), which sees within the early Celtic Christian church the stubborn survival of features of pre-Christian Celtic religion, especially a deference to the feminine principle derived from the pagan mother goddess tradition (surviving in such features as the widespread Marian and Brigidine devotions); a Pelagian resistance to the doctrine of the fall, and a consequent assertion of the innate goodness of human nature and all creation; and an indifference or open hostility to centralised institutional or dogmatic authority (O'Donohue deplored the 'nineteenth-century Romanisation' of Irish catholicism). While O'Donohue's work overlaps to some degree with that of John Moriarty (qv), his prose is more populist and 'user friendly', and his references more restricted, O'Donohue remaining within a catholic Christian tradition rooted in his natal western Celtic terrain, whereas Moriarty roved adventurously over the entire expanse of humankind's spiritual inheritance, primitive, oriental and occidental. Though some commentators have compared O'Donohue to the American Trappist Thomas Merton (1915–68), O'Donohue's writings, reflecting the experience of one who personally ministered to people in personal crisis, offering consolation and counsel to troubled souls, lack both the quirky originality and the disquieting edge of Merton's (the cloistered contemplative's) more provocative meditations. Lacking too is anything like Merton's prophetic engagement with the political in thundering jeremiad; O'Donohue's sincere social conscience notwithstanding, his instinct was more to comfort the afflicted than to afflict the comfortable.
A voracious reader, given to an 'infectious, greyhound-like pursuit of ideas' (Doolan, 5), O'Donohue enjoyed all genres of classical music, and relished walking the mountains and coastlines near his Connemara home, alone or in company. (His efforts to build a house on the family holding in Co. Clare were refused planning permission in 2002 by Clare County Council, supported by the state heritage service, Dúchas (the body that would have managed the proposed Mullaghmore interpretative centre) on the grounds of adverse environmental impact on a fragile landscape, notwithstanding his having obtained expert advice on environmentally sympathetic design.) While treasuring privacy, solitude and silence, he was gregarious in company and a mesmerising raconteur. He and his partner, Kristine Fleck, had no children.
O'Donohue died suddenly and unexpectedly in his sleep on 4 January 2008 while holidaying near Avignon, France; the cause of death has not been released. His remains were returned to his native Clare, where, after requiem mass in St Patrick's church, Fanore, they were interred in Craggagh graveyard. Memorial services were conducted in Galway cathedral, the UK and USA. A high court judgment of 1 December 2011 deemed his will – hastily drafted without legal advice – deficient in terms of uncertainty regarding his intentions, and the 'classic error' of having two of the intended beneficiaries as witnesses (O'Donohue left his entire estate to his mother to be divided 'equally and fairly' among his family with special care for his sister, and with unspecified monetary gifts to other named individuals). The court declared the will void for uncertainty, the entirety of the estate (exceeding €2 million) thus falling into intestacy, and under law going entirely to his mother (who died within weeks of the judgment).
O'Donohue's writings and ideas have resonated posthumously in many aspects of popular culture. His blessing 'For one who holds power' from Benedictus was included in an event honouring Barack Obama prior to his inauguration as US president in 2009. A musical setting of his poem 'Beannacht' was performed at the inauguration of Michael D. Higgins as president of Ireland (11 November 2011). Extracts from his works are widely employed as readings at marriages and funerals, both religious (under the rubrics of various denominations) or secular. Holistic centres hold Anam Cara workshops, and the hospice movement has devised techniques for palliative care derived from his ideas on addressing the spiritual trauma incumbent on terminal illness by the putative Celtic practice of 'leaning into' one's pain.