Cecile O'Rahilly

Dr. Cecile O'Rahilly (Irish: Sisile Ní Rathaille; 17 December 1894 in Listowel, County Kerry, Ireland – 2 May 1980) was a scholar of the Celtic languages. She is best known for her editions/translations of the various recensions of the Ulster Cycle epic saga Táin Bó Cúailnge.

She received a BA with double first class honours in Celtic Studies and French from University College Dublin in 1915, and, having won a Travelling Scholarship in Celtic Studies, received an MA from the University College of North Wales in 1919. She taught French at a number of schools in Wales between 1919 and 1946, publishing an edition of the Irish tale Tóruigheacht Gruaidhe Griansholus ("The Pursuit of Gruaidh Ghriansholus") in 1922, and Ireland and Wales, their historical and literary relations in 1924. She returned to Dublin to take up an assistant professorship in Celtic Studies at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies under her brother T. F. in 1946, later becoming full professor some time after 1956. During this time she published an edition of Eachtra Uilliam, an Irish version of the werewolf legend of Guillaume de Palerme, in 1949, Five Seventeenth Century Political Poems in 1952, Trompa na bhFlaitheas, an 18th-century Irish translation by Tadhg Ó Conaill of La trompette du ciel by Antoine Yvan, in 1955; The Stowe Version of Táin Bó Cúailnge in 1961; and Cath Finntrágha in 1962. She retired from DIAS in 1964, but continued to publish: Táin Bó Cuailnge from the Book of Leinster in 1967, and Táin Bó Cúailnge Recension 1 in 1976.

She was fluent in Irish, Welsh and French. She never married, but lived with her companion Myfanwy Williams. She was sister to Alfred O'Rahilly, a noted academic, President of University College Cork and Teachta Dála (TD) for Cork City, and Thomas Francis O'Rahilly an Irish scholar of the Celtic languages. Their great-grand uncle was noted Irish philologist and antiquary Eugene O'Curry.

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