About John O'Donohue
John O'Donohue was an Irish poet and philosopher. Born in 1956, he grew up in a farming village in County Clare, a barren landscape in western Ireland. In 1990 he received his doctorate from the University of Tübingen with the thesis Person as Mediation. As a philosopher and author, he dealt with Celtic wisdom and Celtic-Christian ideas. He became particularly well-known with the bestseller Anam Cara - A Book of Celtic Wisdom in prose published in 1996. In addition, O'Donohue was considered a profound expert on Hegel's philosophy. He also published many books like Eternal Echoes in 1998, Conamara Blues: Poems published in 2000, Divine Beauty: The Invisible Embrace in 2003 and Walking on the Pastures of Wonder in 2015 published in the US as Walking in Wonder in 2018.He has lived in Connemara (County Galway) since the mid-1990s. He died in early January 2008 while on vacation in France.
A former Catholic priest, O'Donohue was also a longtime member of a grassroots movement to preserve the natural integrity of the Burren region of his birth, and spoke Gaelic.
Browse all poems and texts published on John O'Donohue
Every poet would like to write the ideal poem. Though they never achieve this, sometimes it glimmers through their best work. Ironically, the very beyondness of the idea is often the touch of presence that renders the work luminous. The beauty of the ideal awakens a passion and urgency that brings out the best in the person and calls forth the dream of excellence.
