Donnchadh Ó Floinn (1902-1968), the noted Irish scholar, was born in this house in Main Street at the foot of the bridge. His father Geoffrey, a leather merchant, came from Ardaprior, east of Ballygraddy.
Donnchadh was educated in Kanturk, the North Monastery in Cork and St. Colman’s College, Fermoy. He took his BA degree at Maynooth College where he was ordained in 1927. He served in turn as chaplain and diocesan examiner in Dublin archdiocese. He was later appointed Professor of English and Logic at All Hallows College, Dublin.
However, it was in the field of Irish studies that an tAthair Ó Floinn gained national distinction. He assisted Fr. Dineen with the revised edition of the latter’s seminal Irish-English Dictionary. He made a particular study of the Irish of Clear Island, Co. Cork, and wrote a prayer-book in Irish for children. He inspired the movement known as An Réalt within the Legion of Mary. He was appointed professor of Irish in Maynooth college in 1940 and served the last four years of his life as Parish Priest in Bray, where he died in 1968.