Life
1920-1997; b. 20 Oct., Dublin; son of wheelwright; ed. Rathmines School to eight; variously employed; auditioned successfully for walk-on part for youth in Gate theatre at 16; became theatre costume designer; moved to London, 1950s; briefly taught English at Uppsala University; commenced writing in Sweden; published Esther’s Altar (1959), later rep. as Come Trailing Blood (1977), and set in Easter Week, and compared with Dostoevysky and O’Casey by Dorothy Parker; commissioned by Nicholas Tomalin to write a further story of Dublin slum life for Town magazine; moved to America and soon after to Australia, where he settled in Melbourne for some years; producing The Countrywoman (1962); The Stubborn Season (1962), about an Irish girl adrift in Soho; ’Stravanga (1963), gloomy tale set in Connemara; bankruptcy suit brought against him by Irene Handl over alleged loan of $9,800 in Melbourne, where he was undergoing psychiatric treatment; revealed debts of $11,000; greatly assisted by Victor Bonham-Carter, Secretary of the Royal Literary Fund; moved to London; issued Annie (1972), a novel, highly praised by Kate O’Brien; returned to Dublin, hoping to write for theatre; Totem Pole, an adaptation of Esther’s Altar, performed in Los Angeles (1978); remained unmarried; d. January. DIW DIL OCIL
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Works
Esther’s Altar (NY: Abelard-Schuman 1959), later rep. as Come Trailing Blood (London: Quartet Books 1977), 244pp.; The Stubborn Season (London: Heinemann 1961); The Countrywoman (London: Heinemann 1962); ’Stravanga (London: Heinemann 1963); Summer Sang in Me (q.d.).
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Commentary
Eileen Battersby, ‘Death of a Realist’ [obituary]: refers to The Countrywoman, concerning Molly Baines, a figure of heartbreaking virtue and beauty, never losing courage in struggle against poverty and drunken brute of a husband, whose will she is bound by her religion to serve; set apart from coarse, foul-mouthed women of her Dublin lane by her Wicklow childhood, like a halo about her head; cannot avert misfortune and disaster for her children but trains them in fundamental human decency and dignity; novel celebrates triumph of an indomitable, honest and gay heart against all odds; at the bleak end of the book one of her children, Tucker Tommy, is unable to her pauper’s grave. (Irish Times, Weekend, 8 Jan. 1997.)
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References
Desmond Clarke, Ireland in Fiction: A Guide to Irish Novels, Tales, Romances and Folklore [Pt. 2] (Cork: Royal Carbery 1985), lists Esther’s Altar (1959), about a slum tenement during Easter 1916.
Quartet (Publisher): Come Trailing Blood (London: Quartet 1977), dust-cover notices The Stubborn Season [q.d.]; ’Stravaganza [q.d.], as well as The Countrywoman and Summer Sang in Me (both available in Quartet).
Eggeley Books (Cat. 44) lists also ’Stravanga (London: Heinemann 1963) (vi), 1-[234]pp.
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