Colm O Lochlainn

Career

He was notably the author of Irish Street Ballads published in 1939 and More Irish Street Ballads in 1965. He was part of a team which was sent to Kerry on Good Friday in a bid to seize radio equipment for communication with The Aud, a German ship transporting arms from Germany for the Easter Rising. Ó Lochlainn established the Candle Press in 1916.

He founded his own press, At the Sign of the Three Candles Press, in 1926.

He gave the aspiring piper Seamus Ennis his first job at this press, and Ennis collaborated with him on the Irish Street Ballads books He succeeded Seamus Ó Casaide as volunteer editor of Irish Book Lover in 1930.

He was an assistant in the Faculty of Modern Irish at University College Dublin from 1933–1943, where he later became professor of Irish Language and Literature. He was also associated with the founding of An Óige.

He died in a nursing home in Dublin and was buried in Glasnevin Cemetery.

Achievements

• lieutenant was the winner of a bronze medal for bookbinding in 1924.

Membership

A native of Kilkenny, Ó Lochlainn was a member of the Irish volunteers in 1916. He and a colleague, Denis Daly made it to their destination but a second car transporting three others crashed into the river at Ballykissane, Killorglin, killing three members of the team, Con Keating, Donal Sheehan and Charlie Monaghan. Seamus Ennis was godfather to Colm"s son Ruan, a renowned musician who played with Bees Make Honey and appeared on recordings with artists such as Bryan Ferry, Link Wray and who was a founding member of Ronnie Lane"s Slim Chance.