Robert O'Dwyer was born to Irish parents in Bristol, England, where he received private musical education and acted as a chorister and assistant organist during the years 1872 to 1891.
He also wrote articles and concert reviews for The Leader, which became an outlet for his increasingly nationalist views.
O'Dwyer completed his major composition, the three-act opera Eithne, in 1909, on the strengths of which he was appointed Professor of Irish Music at University College Dublin (1914–1939).
A concert performance of the work took place at the National Concert Hall, Dublin, in October 2017 featuring the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra and singers Orla Boylan, Gavan Ring, Robin Tritschler and Eamonn Mulhall.
[2] The background to both Muirgheis and Eithne – and other works including Connla of the Golden Hair (1903) by William Harvey Pélissier, The Tinker and the Fairy (1909) by Michele Esposito, and to some extent Diarmuid and Gráinne (1901) by Edward Elgar – is the increasing recourse to Irish mythology and the Celtic revival within Irish culture as a means for national identification in the (cultural) struggle for independence.