Kathleen Coyle
Life
1886-1952 [Mrs. Charles Maher;] raised in Derry and Inishowen, Co. Donegal; suffered crippling accident to foot involving a pramwheel in childhood, permitted to go unattended through anxiety of her nanny to hide it; father became alcoholic with declining fortunes; lived in Paris and New York; |
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novels include A Flock of Birds (1930), which narrates events of the civil war as told by the son of a boy under sentence of death in Belfast; competed with Forsters Passage to India for major prize; Family Skeleton (1934); Undue Fulfilment (1934); Morning Comes Early [q.d.]; To Hold Against Famine [q.d.]; also an memoir (1948); a plaque was placed in her honour in Derry, Oct. 1995; a dg., Michelle Ripley. IF2 KUN OCIL FDA |
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Works
- Flock of Birds (London: Jonathan Cape 1930), 255pp. and Do., rep. (Dublin: Wolfhound; Chester Springs: Dufour 1995), 192pp.
- The French Husband (London: Pharos Book [q.d.]), 251pp.
- Immortal Ease (London: Gollancz 1941), 447pp.
- It Is Better to Tell (London: Jonathan Cape 1928).
- Morning Comes Early (NY: E. P. Dutton 1934), 522pp.
- The Skeleton [2nd imp.] (Dutton 1933), 253pp., and Do. as Family Skeleton (London: Ivor Nicholson & Watson 1934), 293pp.
- Undue Fulfillment (NY: William Morrow 1934), 291pp.
- The Widows House &c. (London: Jonathan Cape 1924), 253pp.
- Youth in the Saddle (London: Jonathan Cape 1927), 285pp.
- The Magic Realm [1943]: An Irish Childhood (Dublin: Wolfhound 1997), 272pp.
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Criticism John Cronin, Kathleen Coyle, A Flock of Birds, in The Anglo-Irish Novel, Vol II (Belfast: Appletree Press 1990), pp.129; see also Robert Greacen, [Explorer of the Feminine Psyche,] in Rooted in Ulster: Nine Northern Writers (Belfast: Lagan Press 2001), 130pp.
Commentary Carey Harrison, A Classic from the Past, in Fiction of the Week [column], Irish Times (30 Sept. 1995), p.9, compares Flock of Birds to Ford Maddox Ford, The Good Soldier; concerns Christy Munster, in N. Ireland, 1918, accused of murder that he almost certainly didnt commit; rifts appear in his family, which does not share his revolutionary politics, days before his hanging; told through eyes of his mother, Catherine, who through force of love enables her son to die well.
References Desmond Clarke, Ireland in Fiction [Pt. II] (Cork: Royal Carbery 1985), lists Youth in the Saddle (London: Jonathan Cape 1927), A Flock of Birds (London: Jonathan Cape 1930; Wolfhound 1995), both realistic - and unconventional - psychological investigations of family life at the time of the troubles, 1919-22; power of evoking emotion.
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