Irish scholar and industrious copyist and translator of Old Irish (Irish language) manuscripts whose works had an important influence on the revival of the Gaelic (Gaelic revival) language and literature and contributed to the late 19th-century Irish literary renaissance.

O'Curry examined and arranged many of the Irish manuscripts in the Royal Irish Academy and Trinity College library and compiled the catalog of those in the British Museum. In 1854 he was appointed professor of Irish history and archaeology in the new Catholic University of Ireland. His lectures, which give a full account of the medieval chronicles, historical romances, tales, and poems, were published in 1861. Subsequent volumes entitled On the Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish appeared in 1873.