Edward MacNulty

Life
1856-1943 [Edward Matthew M’Nulty]; b. Randalstown, Co. Antrim; ed. Incorporated Society’s School, Aungier St., schoolmate and friend of GBS; contributed to periodicals including Irish Society, The Occult Review; living in Ranelagh in 1919; plays, The Lord Mayor (Abbey [1914]), The Courting of Mary Doyle (1921), both published; also novels, Misther O’Ryan (1894), about the son of a whisky-drinking priest; Son of a Peasant (1897); Maureen (1904), dealing with mercenary exploitation an alleged miracle by the clergy; Mrs. Mulligan’s Millions (1903). MacNulty wrote a memoir of GBS in 1901 [CHK]. DIW IF DIL DUB OCIL.

 

 

Works
Novels
  • Misther O’Ryan (London: Edward Arnold 1894); The Son of A Peasant (London: Edward Arnold 1897).
  • Maureen (London: Edward Arnold 1904); Mrs Mulligan’s Millions (London: Hurst & Blackett 1908).
Plays
  • The Lord Mayor [Abbey 1914] (Dublin: Talbot 1914).
  • Mrs Mulligans’s Millions (Dublin: Maunsel 1918).
  • The Courting of Mary Doyle [Abbey 1921] (Dublin: Gill 1944).
Miscellaneous
  • ‘George Bernard Shaw as a Boy’, in The Candid Friend (July 6 1901).
See also ‘Memoir of G.B.S’, in Shaw: The Annual of Bernard Shaw Studies, ed. Dan Laurence Vol. 12 (Univ. Park 1992), pp.1-46 [49pp. typescript held in Archibald Hendeson Collection, Southern Hist. Collection and Manuscripts Dept. of Univ. of N. Carolina at Chapel Hill].

 

 

Criticism
Olivia Coolidge, George Bernard Shaw (1968), St. John Ervine, Bernard Shaw, His Life, Work, and Friends (NY 1956); John O’Donovan, The Shaws of Synge Street (Newark: Proscenium 1966), play, after at the Abbey in 1960, shows a naive, goodhearted McNulty. [DIL]

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Commentary
Sean O’Faolain, The Irish (1947): ‘At the other end of the scale [from Banim’s Father Connell] is Misther O’Ryan (1894) by Edward M’Nulty in which the priest is an ugly, whisky-drinking, vulgar fellow. His influence is that of a bully and a political intriguer.’ (p.113.)

 

References
Stephen Brown, I reland in Fiction [Pt. I] (Dublin: Maunsel 1919) lists Misther O’Ryan (London: Arnold 1894) [unspeakably vulgar whiskey priest joins ‘the Lague’ (Gaelic League) and boycott’s farmer who will not, with tragic consequences for his daughter]; Son of a Peasant (London: Arnold 1897) [tragi-comedy amid lower-middle class townsfolk; ‘a great advance’ on former]; Maureen (London: Arnold 1904) [back to starters; priest trades in ‘miraculous’ statues]; Mrs. Mulligan’s Millions (London: Arnold 1903) [stage-Irish farce]; Fr. Brown considers that his recurrent ‘pesint’ portraits are cringing and degraded.

Belfast Central Public Library holds The Courting of Mary Doyle (n.d.), Lord Mayor, a Dublin comedy (1917).

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