23 Facts About Padraic Colum

Padraic Colum was an Irish poet, novelist, dramatist, biographer, playwright, children's author and collector of folklore.

Padraic Colum was one of the leading figures of the Irish Literary Revival.

Padraic Colum was the first of eight children born to Patrick and Susan Columb.

Padraic Colum finished school the following year and at the age of seventeen, he passed an exam for and was awarded a clerkship in the Irish Railway Clearing House.

Padraic Colum joined the Gaelic League and was a member of the first board of the Abbey Theatre.

Padraic Colum became a regular user of the National Library of Ireland, where he met James Joyce and the two became lifelong friends.

Padraic Colum himself was not engaged in the protests, although he did pay his father's fine afterwards.

Padraic Colum was awarded a five-year scholarship by a wealthy American benefactor, Thomas Hughes Kelly.

Padraic Colum was awarded a prize by Cumann na nGaedheal for his anti-enlistment play, The Saxon Shillin'.

Padraic Colum wrote another important play for the Abbey named Thomas Muskerry.

Padraic Colum's earliest published poems appeared in The United Irishman, a paper edited by Arthur Griffith.

Padraic Colum published several poems in Arthur Griffith's paper, The United Irishman this time, with The Poor Scholar bringing him to the attention of WB Yeats.

Padraic Colum became a friend of Yeats and Lady Gregory.

Padraic Colum collected Irish folk songs, and adapted some of them.

Padraic Colum taught at Padraig Pearse's experimental school, Scoil Eanna in Rathfarnham, County Dublin and Mary Maguire taught at the girls' school, Scoil Ide, which was set up in Cullenswood House, Ranelagh, Dublin, once Scoil Eanna had moved to Rathfarnham.

The Colums spent the years from 1930 to 1933 living in Paris and Nice, where Padraic renewed his friendship with James Joyce and became involved in the transcription of Finnegans Wake.

Padraic Colum was a prolific author and published a total of 61 books, not counting his plays.

Padraic Colum adopted the form of Noh drama in his later plays.

Mary died in 1957 and Padraic Colum finished Our Friend James Joyce, which they had worked on together.

Padraic Colum divided his later years between the United States and Ireland.

Padraic Colum died in Enfield, Connecticut, age 90, and was buried in St Fintan's Cemetery, Sutton.

In 1965, Padraic Colum sold the notebooks, manuscripts, galley proofs, and letters that were in his apartments in New York and Dublin to the Binghamton University Libraries.

Padraic Colum wished to make whatever resources he could available to scholars of Irish literature and history.