John O'Keeffe (1747-1833) was an Irish playwright who began his career as an actor in 1764. His first significant success as a writer was the play The Son-in-Law in 1779, and he was later called 'our English Moliere' by essayist William Hazlitt. He moved to London in 1781 - around the same time that his marriage broke down - and wrote a string of successful comic operas and dramatic works, including Wild Oats (1791). However, he suffered from failing eyesight and was nearly blind at the height of his fame. He dictated this memoir, published in two volumes in 1826, to his daughter, Adelaide (1776-1865). In Volume 1, O'Keeffe recounts his childhood in Ireland, his first trip to London in 1762, where he saw the legendary actor and theatre producer David Garrick (1717-79) on stage, and the beginning of his own dramatic career upon returning to Dublin.

John O'Keeffe (1747-1833) was an Irish playwright who began his career as an actor in 1764. His first significant success as a writer was the play The Son-in-Law in 1779, and he was later called 'our English Moliere' by essayist William Hazlitt. He moved to London in 1781 - around the same time that his marriage broke down - and wrote a string of successful comic operas and dramatic works, including Wild Oats (1791). However, he suffered from failing eyesight and was nearly blind at the height of his fame. He dictated this memoir, published in two volumes in 1826, to his daughter, Adelaide (1776-1865). In Volume 2, O'Keeffe recounts his years in London, discussing many of his plays and giving a glimpse into theatre life in Georgian England, before moving on to his subsequent retirement and the complications surrounding the publication of his collected works.

The book represents an exploration of three Irish-language mass settings for the Roman Rite, two by Sean and one by Peadar O Riada, written from within the cultural context of the Gaeltacht of Cuil Aodha. In it the author highlights the significance of the achievements of both composers (particularly the younger of the two), validating their work against the heritage and compositional principles of western plainchant, and heralding its significance as a signpost for contemporary vernacular liturgical music.It presents an investigation into the liturgical music of Sean and Peadar O Riada through an examination of three Roman-Rite mass settings composed in the Irish vernacular from within the cultural context of the West-Cork Gaeltacht of Muscrai. The main part of the work, running from Chapters Three to Six, consists of a detailed analysis of the contents of the mass settings, a body of material which is considered from the following perspectives: as emanating from a living culture of native traditional song; as part of a historical continuum of monophonic liturgical composition for the Roman Rite, having at its origins the compositional traditions of plainchant; as part of a broader aesthetic context of text-music relationships found in the repertoires of plainchant, medieval song and folksong; and finally, as part of the new liturgical reality existing since the Second Vatican Council which requires viable and sustainable musical approaches to the setting of vernacular texts.