[3][4] Ó hEocha was born James Hough[5] in Ballyshane, Monagea, south of Newcastle West, County Limerick.
[3] He died in Bon Secours Hospital, Cork, and his funeral mass was celebrated by Daniel Cohalan, Bishop of Waterford and Lismore, and attended by the President, Éamon de Valera, and other political and Irish-language figures.
[1] Ó hEocha studied Irish in Coláiste na Mumhan in Ballingeary, passing an exam in 1906 and gaining the nickname "An Fear Mór" in 1908.
[3] He and the Coláiste more generally were credited with slowing the encroachment of English as the vernacular into the small Ring Gaeltacht, although in later years he was pessimistic about its survival.
[6] In 1920 The Educational Company of Ireland published as a reader Seanchas agus Scéilíní Simplidhe dá Ghaedhil óga na hÉireann, a collection of stories which had appeared in Pobal, a Limerick paper.