Darach Ó Séaghdha (that surname is pronounced O’Shay) is a bestselling author from Dublin who writes about Irish culture, especially the complicated place of the Irish language in contemporary Ireland. His debut Motherfoclóir: Dispatches from a Not-So Dead Language won in the popular non-fiction category at the Irish Book Awards in 2017. The sequel, Craic Baby: Dispatches From A Rising Language was published in 2018. He has written for The Journal, the Irish Times, the Sunday Business Post, the Big Issue and The i as well as turning up in The Washington Post, The Guardian and National Geographic. Darach presented the Motherfoclóir Podcast on the Headstuff Podcast Network from 2017 to 2021, which was listed as one of Ireland’s top podcasts in The Sunday Times and RTÉ. He ran the Irish Word of the Week Series for the Irish Arts Center in New York, which ran during Covid-19 lockdown.
Darach created the popular @theirishfor account on Twitter, described by President Michael D Higgins as “such an innovative, humorous but substantial project to promote our love and interest in our native language”.
He is married with two children.