John O’Donohue

A native Irish speaker from County Clare, John O'Donohue (1956-2008) entered Maynooth at eighteen to study English literature, philosophy, and theology, and was ordained a priest in 1982. He earned a PhD in Philosophical Theology from the University of Tübingen in 1990, then undertook postdoctoral work on the thirteenth-century mystic Meister Eckhart. His two poetry collections are Echoes of Memory (1994), his first published book, and Conamara Blues (2000). The prose work Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom (1997) became an international bestseller and brought him a wide readership as a speaker and teacher. He left the priesthood in 2000. He died in France in January 2008.