[1] After leaving St. Patrick's, Corkery taught art for the local technical education committee, before becoming inspector of Irish in 1925 and Professor of English at University College Cork in 1930.
In this he attempted to reconstruct a worldview preserved by Gaelic poets amongst the poor and oppressed Catholic peasantry of the Penal Laws era, virtually invisible in the Anglo-Irish tradition that had dominated the writing of Irish history.
"An instant, influential classic", wrote Patrick Walsh, "its version of the past provided powerful cultural underpinning to the traditional nationalist history that became, in the 1930s, the educational orthodoxy of the new state".
[2] Corkery lived on Gardiners Hill in Cork and in 1931 was elected president of his local GAA club, Brian Dillons.
[3] Every year, in the third week of July, the Daniel Corkery Summer School is held in the village of Inchigeelagh, County Cork.