Tolkien inspired by Galway landscape

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Written by Deirdre O'Shaughnessy

Wednesday, 18 July 2007

'Lord of the Rings' author JRR Tolkien spent time in Galway while writing his masterpiece, it has been revealed.

Tolkien was an external examiner of English at NUI, Galway (then UCG) on several occasions during the 1950s. While in Ireland he stayed at the home of his fellow Professor of English, Diarmuid Murphy, whose daughter Rose recently spoke fondly of the "gentle, observant man" who visited her family during the 1950s and became a close friend.

Rose was a teenager when Tolkien first visited, but during his later visits she would have been a student at NUIG, and it's possible that he marked her papers. Although she cannot remember many "serious conversations" with the Oxford don, Rose told the Galway Independent that he was very interested in nature, and hated any blot of industry on the landscape, a passion reflected in the last book of the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

The fantasy writer and scholar of Old English was also awarded an honorary doctorate by the National University of Ireland in 1954, the same year his seminal work was published.

According to Professor Kevin Barry, Dean of Arts and a former Head of English at NUIG, Tolkien was well known as an "extraordinary storyteller", and he was always welcome, due to his "incredible fund of stories and gossip, not just about fantasy but also about his university colleagues".

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