STEVENSON, Robert Louis. An Dr. Jekyll Agus Mr. Hyde (First edition in Irish of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde)

Dublin: Mhuinntir Ch. S. o Fallamhain, Teo, 1929. pp. 99. First edition. Blue cloth, black lettering on upper cover and spine. In fine condition with very good dustjacket. A rare printing of this classic tale, illustrated by Feardorcha Ó Conaill.

Feardorcha Ó Conaill or Frederick William O'Connell (1876-1929) was a Church of Ireland clergyman, writer, and translator to and from Irish often under the pen name Conall Cearnach (after the legendary hero). He is known especially for editing the work of Peadar Ó Laoghaire. Ó Conaill was born in Newtown, Leenaun, County Galway to William Morgan O'Connell, a Church of Ireland canon, and his wife Catherine Donnelly. Leenaun was in the Gaeltacht of Connemara, and William's parents were fluent Irish-speakers who taught him the language at the age of six.

He attended Trinity College, Dublin from 1891 and was ordained in 1902. He became rector of Achonry in 1907 and afterwards obtained a post as lecturer in Celtic languages and literature at Queen's University, Belfast. Interested in strange literature, O’Connell made the first translation into Irish of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Cas aduain an Dr Jekyll agus Mhr Hyde in 1929. O’Connell died tragically when he was struck by a bus in October of that year. Ó Conaill married Helen Young in 1905; they had three sons before she died of tuberculosis in 1925 after the couple moved to Dublin. He later married Marcella Graham, a French Catholic, and may have informally converted to Catholicism. He became assistant director of Radio Éireann in 1927, months before he was struck and killed by a bus driver while hailing a tram on Lansdowne Road, Dublin.

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