|
Life
1880-1932 [Anna Gertrude Foley]; b. 10 Nov., in Mota at Ring [Rinn], Co. Kerry, dg. of Irish-speaking school-teachers, Micheál Ó Foghludha (dd.1905) and Eibhlín [née de Brún]; her father was an award-winning teacher of Irish, and her parents both taught in the same school; ed. Convent of Mercy, Dungarvin; grad. in Irish at UUC [NUI, Cork]; employed as teacher in Waterford Ccollege, but dismissed due to IRB associations, 1916; m. Séamus Ó Néill, 21 Jan. 1917, also a teacher and a member of the Gaelic League and sworn member of the IRB and leader of the Cashel company of the Volunteers;
Séamus was captured and imprisoned at Wormwood, Frongoch (Scotland), Durham, and later again in Brixton as a member of the Third Brigade of the IRA, 1919; on formation of the Free State he became a member of the Garda Siochána; during his imprisonment Aine taught that Presentation College, Cashel, and also in Fethard; she continued her political involvement and carried messages for Sean Tracy; with the appearance of her volume Idir na fleadhanna in 1922 - notable for its rhyming scheme - she came to be considered a leading Irish-language poet;
in 1922 she wrote Brosna, a collection of children’s stories which was long featured in the Irish school syllabus; moved with Séamus from Dublin to Courtown (Co Wexford) and Caherciveen (Co. Donegal) with his changing posts, and died of pneumonia in the last-named on 14 April 1932 - prob. caused by latent TB; bur. in Ring; her husband is thought to be have been posted away from Dublin due to his excessive preoccupation with Irish-language teaching in his examining role at the Garda training school; after her death he was sent to Galway city, where he remained on retirement in 1957, and where he died in 1974. [Aimn.ie].
Works
| Poetry |
|
| Fiction |
|
| Plays (posthum.) |
|
|
[ top ]
Criticism
Mary N. Harris, ‘Beleaguered but Determined: Irish Women Writers in Irish’, in Feminist Review, 51 (Autumn 1995), pp.26-40 [available at JSTOR - online].
References
The entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004) is by Maria Luddy [available by subscription online]. See also Diarmuid Breathnach & Máire Ní Mhurchú, ‘Ní Áine Fhoghludha’, in Ainm.ie [as Gaeilge; incls. photo - available online].
[ top ]