Robin Ernest William Flower (1881–1946) was an English poet and scholar, a Celticist

Celtic Studies

Celtic studies is the academic discipline occupied with the study of any sort of cultural output relating to a Celtic people. This ranges from linguistics, literature and art history archaeology and history, the focus lying on the study of the various Celtic languages, living and extinct...

, Anglo-Saxonist and translator from the Irish language

Irish language

Irish , also known as Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is now spoken as a first language by a minority of Irish people, as well as being a second language of a larger proportion of...

. He is commonly known in Ireland as "Bláithín" (Little Flower). He married Ida Mary Streeter.

Life

He was born at Meanwood

Meanwood

Meanwood is a suburb and former village of north-west Leeds, West Yorkshire, England.-Origins and History:The name Meanwood goes back to the 12th century, and is of Anglo-Saxon derivation: the Meene wude was the boundary wood of the Manor of Alreton, the woods to the east of Meanwood Beck...

 in Yorkshire

Yorkshire

Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...

, and educated at Leeds Grammar School

Leeds Grammar School

Leeds Grammar School was an independent school in Leeds established in 1552. In August 2005 it merged with Leeds Girls' High School to form The Grammar School at Leeds. The two schools physically united in September 2008....

 and Pembroke College, Oxford

Pembroke College, Oxford

Pembroke College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England, located in Pembroke Square. As of 2009, Pembroke had an estimated financial endowment of £44.9 million.-History:...

. He worked from 1929 as Deputy Keeper of Manuscripts in the British Museum

British Museum

The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...

 and, completing the work of Standish Hayes O'Grady

Standish Hayes O'Grady

Standish Hayes O'Grady was an Irish antiquarian. He was born at Erinagh House, Castleconnell, County Limerick, the son of Admiral Hayes O'Grady. He was a cousin of the writer Standish James O'Grady, with whom he is sometimes confused. As a child, he learnt Irish from the native speakers of his...

, compiled a catalogue of the Irish manuscripts there.

He wrote several collections of poetry, translations of the Irish poets for the Cuala Press

Cuala Press

The Cuala Press was an Irish private press set up in 1908 by Elizabeth Yeats with support from her brother William Butler Yeats that played an important role in the Celtic Revival of the early 20th century.-Origins:...

, and verses on Blasket Island

Blasket Islands

The Blasket Islands are a group of islands off the west coast of Ireland, forming part of County Kerry. They were inhabited until 1953 by a completely Irish-speaking population. The inhabitants were evacuated to the mainland on 17 November 1953...

. He first visited Blasket in 1910, at the recommendation of Carl Marstrander

Carl Marstrander

Carl Johan Sverdrup Marstrander was a Norwegian linguist, known for his work on the Irish language. His works, largely written in Norwegian, on the Celtic and Norse components in Norwegian culture, are considered important for modern Norway.-Life:...

, his teacher at the School of Irish Learning

School of Irish Learning

The School of Irish Learning was a center for Irish studies in Dublin founded in 1903 by Kuno Meyer, who talked of "the necessity of bringing the [Irish revivalist] movement into direct and intimate relations with scholarship, to provide an avenue for every student of Irish to the higher regions of...

 in Dublin; he acquired there the Irish nickname Bláithín. He suggested a Norse origin for the name "Blasket". Under Flower's influence, George Derwent Thomson

George Derwent Thomson

George Derwent Thomson was an English classical scholar, Marxist philosopher, and scholar of the Irish language.-Classical scholar:...

 and Kenneth Hurlstone Jackson made scholarly visits to Blasket.

After his death his ashes were scattered on the Blasket Islands.

Works

As a scholar of Anglo-Saxon

Anglo-Saxon

Anglo-Saxon may refer to:* Anglo-Saxons, a group that invaded Britain** Old English, their language** Anglo-Saxon England, their history, one of various ships* White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, an ethnicity* Anglo-Saxon economy, modern macroeconomic term...

, he wrote on the Exeter Book

Exeter Book

The Exeter Book, Exeter Cathedral Library MS 3501, also known as the Codex Exoniensis, is a tenth-century book or codex which is an anthology of Anglo-Saxon poetry. It is one of the four major Anglo-Saxon literature codices. The book was donated to the library of Exeter Cathedral by Leofric, the...

He identified interpolations in the Old English Bede

Bede

Bede , also referred to as Saint Bede or the Venerable Bede , was a monk at the Northumbrian monastery of Saint Peter at Monkwearmouth, today part of Sunderland, England, and of its companion monastery, Saint Paul's, in modern Jarrow , both in the Kingdom of Northumbria...

, by Laurence Nowell

Laurence Nowell

Two sixteenth-century English cousins, one an antiquarian and the other a churchman, were named Laurence Nowell. Their biographies have been confused since the seventeenth century.-Antiquarian:Laurence Nowell Two sixteenth-century English cousins, one an antiquarian and the other a churchman, were...

. His work on Nowell included the discovery in 1934, in Nowell's transcription, of the poem Seasons for Fasting

Seasons for Fasting

The title Seasons for Fasting refers to an incomplete Old English homiletic poem, which deals primarily with the observance of fasts on the appropriate dates of the liturgical calendar, but which also attacks the misbehaviour of lax priests. Counting 229 lines, it is the longest Old English poem...

.

He translated from the writings of Tomás Ó Criomhthain

Tomás Ó Criomhthain

Tomás Ó Criomhthain was a native of the Irish-speaking Great Blasket Island off the coast of County Kerry in Ireland. He wrote two books, Allagar na h-Inise written over the period 1918–23 and published in 1928, and , completed in 1923 and published in 1929...

, his teacher on Blasket in Irish, and wrote a memoir, The Western Island; Or, the Great Blasket (1944), illustrated by his wife Ida. The essay collection The Irish Tradition (1947) is often cited, and was reprinted in 1994; it includes "Ireland and Medieval Europe", his John Rhŷs Memorial Lecture from 1927.

External links

• Robin Flower at www.pgil-eirdata.org
• Translation of "Pangur Bán
  Pangur Bán
  "Pangur Bán" is an Old Irish poem, written about the 9th century at or around Reichenau Abbey. It was written by an Irish monk, and is about his cat. Pangur Bán, "white fuller", is the cat's name. Although the poem is anonymous, it bears similarities to the poetry of Sedulius Scottus, prompting...
  
  ", a poem by an 8th (? 9th) century Irish monk about his cat