Beside the Fire

Douglas Hyde was a prominent Irish scholar of the Irish language, who served as the first President of Ireland.  While a young child, he became fascinated with hearing local people speak the Irish language, which was considered backward.  Despite his family’s wish that he pursue a career in the church, young Douglas attended Trinity College in Dublin, where he became fluent in French, Latin, German, Greek, and Hebrew.  However, his primary passion was the preservation of the Irish language, which was already in decline.  

Hyde joined the Society for the Preservation of the Irish Language around 1880.  He published more than a hundred pieces of Irish verse over the next 5 years, using the pseudonym An Craoibhín Aoibhinn ("The Pleasant Little Branch").  In 1893, he was one of the founders of the Gaelic League, which was established to encourage the preservation of Irish culture, its music, dances, and especially its language.  W. B. Yeats credited Hyde as the source of the Irish literary renaissance.

Hyde was inaugurated as the first President of Ireland on 26 June 1938, in the first inaugural ceremony in the nation's history.

This edition of Douglas Hyde’s Beside the Fire is specially formatted with a Table of Contents and pictures of  Hyde and characters from Irish folklore.