About
John O'Donohue (1956–2008) was an Irish poet and philosopher who grew up in the Burren, the bare limestone country of County Clare, where the Celtic Christian tradition joins a sense of mystery to an embrace of nature, the body and the senses. He studied English, philosophy and theology at St Patrick's College, Maynooth, was ordained a Catholic priest in 1979, and in 1990 took a PhD in philosophical theology at the University of Tübingen with a dissertation on Hegel. Anam Cara (1997), named for the Gaelic 'soul friend', became an international bestseller; Eternal Echoes, Divine Beauty and the book of blessings Benedictus followed. He left the priesthood in 2000 and helped lead the Burren Action Group, whose opposition to government development plans preserved the karst landscape of Mullaghmore. He died suddenly in his sleep near Avignon in January 2008.
Key Contributions
- Wrote Anam Cara (1997), an international bestseller on the Celtic idea of the 'soul friend'
- Argued in Divine Beauty (2003) that beauty is a human calling, not a luxury
- Gathered blessings for life's thresholds in Benedictus (2007), published in the US as To Bless the Space Between Us
- Earned a PhD at Tübingen (1990) with a dissertation on Hegel's philosophy
- Helped lead the Burren Action Group that protected Mullaghmore's karst landscape in County Clare
