Ingne Dearga Dheaideo

Pádraic Breathnach was born in Kylebroghlan, Moycullen, Co. Galway in 1942. His parents Liam and Máire (née Ní Ghabháin) were farmers. They had eleven children; Patrick was the sixth. He attended St. Mary's College, Galway and the National University of Ireland, Galway. Pádraic holds a degree in Irish and history and also studied for an MA and the Higher Diploma in Education. He spent periods teaching in Galway, Tipperary and Dublin, and in 1969 was appointed as a lecturer in Irish in Mary Immaculate College, Limerick, a college of the University of Limerick.

Breathnach has assiduously practiced the short story form in Irish over the past thirty years and has produced numerous collections. Gabriel Rosenstock translated a selection of Pádraic's short stories into English as The March hare and other stories (Cló Iar-Chonnachta, 1994). Four of his short stories were translated to English in the book Fourfront (Cló Iar-Chonnachta, 1998) and his work has also been translated to Croatian, Albanian Romanian, and Polish.

Pádraic has also published a work of local and social history on his native parish Maigh Cuilinn: a tásc is a tuairisc (Cló Chonamara, 1986) and edited (along with M. Seoighe and S. Mac Muirí) Mícheál Ó Braonáin's great poem on the Shannon: Príomhshruth Éireann (Bardas Luimnigh, 1994). The Irish American Cultural Institute awarded him the Butler Prize in 1992. The Irish American Cultural Institute awarded him the Butler Prize in 1992. He was awarded the Oireachtas Prize, Duais Chuimhneacháin Sheáin Uí Éigeartaigh in 2003 for Ingne Dearga Dheaideo (Cló Iar-Chonnacht, 2005). This is a collection of short stories exploring a wide range of themes, including grief, old age, the eternal struggle between tradition and modernity and life through the eyes of a child.