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O'Donnell and his Collection

Nicholas Michael O'Donnell was born in Bullengarook near Gisborne, central Victoria, in 1862 to Irish parents from Co. Limerick. After completing a medical degree at the University of Melbourne he established a medical practice at 160 Victoria Street, North Melbourne. But he was more than just a medical practitioner: he was also deeply involved in Irish cultural and political activities, and nowadays by many is considered Melbourne’s foremost Gaelic scholar.

A self-taught Irish speaker who taught and promoted the language widely (despite never having visited Ireland himself), other engagements with Irish-Australian affairs included:

  • 1889: elected Vice President of the Irish National League of Victoria
  • 1901: together with Thomas Cunnigham and Morgan Jageurs formed the Melbourne Branch of Conradh na Gaeilge (The Gaelic League)
  • 1901-12: wrote weekly column (in Irish), "Our Gaelic Column", for the Advocate newspaper
  • 1907-09: President of the Melbourne Celtic Club

Continuing testament to O'Donnell's involvement with Irish culture is his personal library. Following his death in 1920, this library was bequeathed to Newman College by his children in 1924, and it now forms part of the Irish Collection in the St Mary’s Newman Academic Centre (SNAC). The O’Donnell Collection comprises around 400 books and pamphlets, primarily in and on the Irish language, folklore, history, and contemporary politics. Notable items include two 19th-century scribal manuscripts, and a first edition of Charlotte Brooke's Reliques of Irish Poetry (1789).

O'Donnell's engagement with his collection is evidenced by his notes, annotations, paste-ins, spine labels and marginalia, some of which are showcased on this website.

For more comprehensive discussions of O'Donnell's life and his Collection, see the following articles and books chapters.