#terence macswiney

[stairnaheireann]

#OTD in 1886 – Home Rule Bill introduced in English Parliament by William Gladstone.

The Acts of Union 1800, united the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland (previously in personal union) to create the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. At various intervals during this time, attempts were made to destabilise Anglo-Irish relations. Rebellions were launched in 1803, 1848, 1867, and 1916 to try to end British rule over Ireland. Daniel O’Connell in the…

[newyorkthegoldenage]

Three Irishwomen, dressed in black, carry palms of victory and placards that read, "Terence MacSwiney is dead—greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends," "Terence MacSwiney is dead," and "In life or death the victory is ours—MacSwiney" during a parade downtown, ca. 1920. MacSwiney was an Irish playwright, author, and Sinn Fein Lord Mayor of Cork who died in October 1920 after 74 days on hunger strike, having been imprisoned at Brixton Prison by the British Government on charges of sedition.

Photo: Keystone View Company/Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

[hyperions-fate]

Like Terence MacSwiney before him, Khader Adnan gave his body and his life for the cause of human freedom. His sacrifice will not be in vain.

[werewolfetone]

adding terence macswiney to the list of Hot Cork Revolutionaries (with a side of tragedy) my man, my boy, light of my life

Added to the list along with Collins & Russell 👍

[thesquireinvictus]

"It is not those that inflict the most, but those that endure the most, that shall win."

— Terence MacSwiney, Irish playwright, author, and politician, who assumed office as Lord Mayor of Cork during the Irish War of Independence in 1920, and was arrested by British forces on charges of sedition, then incarcerated in Brixton Prison, where he died after 74 days on hunger strike, bringing the Irish cause to the attention of the world.

[antonia-gergely]

Crawford Art Gallery - Dominic Thorpe's Dark Dark Mouth - 25/01/2024

Notes I took while I was there:

"All Eyes on Us, curated by Matt Ryan and Michael Waldron, sets a wonderfully meta scene for Thorpe's performance. Housed within the Gibson galleries, these glaring gazes watch me watch the artist. They add to the sense of urgent, inactionable distress conveyed by Thorpe's exhibited body of work. Sitting at a large table topped by a sheet of paper is Thorpe. There is a large metal pipe in the centre of the room"

Afterwards Thorpe informed me that it was an old pole he had in his garden, potentially from the ESB. he was very nonchalant about it - just a simple sculptural element he liked

"One end has a white square of muslin draped over it, the other end gently grazes the performer's head occasionally. He moves about in his trance, rocking and adjusting his pen-wielding hand on the page at a pace so slow you would miss it if you only glanced at him. The other hand in his mouth conveys an exaggerated position of anxiety. Nail-biting, tooth-grinding, thumb-sucking. A swell of breath sends his hand dancing a few millimetres away from its former resting place."

"This couldn't be a better setting. Kevin Mooney's Storyteller faces Thorpe. There lies a dialogue about Irish history. The image of the man of the house, telling victorious stories, invincible, smoking a pipe, across from the performer, a man in silent agony. How far does this hidden perpetrator's trauma recede into history? How do we mitigate its continuation?

"John Lavery's impressionist muscle memory emerges in the portrait of Mrs Terence MacSwiney behind Thorpe. She watches in slight amusement at how engrossed I am with this performance. Another facet of Irish history.

"Four bricks of limestone - the buildings of Ireland - hold down each corner of the large sheet on which the artist works. He uses such a grand surface and moves so little. Is he stuck? Overwhelmed?

"Is he drawing what it feels like inside his mouth? Is he meditating? Are we supposed to be seeing this? Am I supposed to be standing in front of him scribbling down ideas of him as he undertakes this journey of undoing or doing or awakening or meditating? I want to ask him. I want to ask him but I can't. I am so close but so indescribably far from the working mind of this artist."

Then he came out of his meditative drawing trance, before the end of the performance. There was repetitive talking outside. It was such a jarring feeling, though I knew it was unintentional, suddenly being watched by the work I was scrutinising. It was just like the paintings around me watching me, but more real. Thorpe apologised before resuming the performance, but honestly it was the most engaging and evocative part of the performance.

It was one of those moments where you question the boundaries between art and life. Between being the observer or the observed.

After the performance, and a quick chat with the very amicable artist, I went next door to the gallery containing some drawings of his. Very simply installed, pieces of tracing paper covered each drawing, pressing against, and revealing, each drawing when a fan blew on them.

The rustling of the paper and whirring of the fans in complete silence was akin to some abandoned thought, left to flutter and fade by the mind. I think it worked so well because it was an understated look at the psychological effects of war on those involved as perpetrators and fighters. It didn't preach or degrade, and it left a lot of room for personal interpretation of the installation's elements.

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 10.25 (after 1920)

1920 – After 74 days on hunger strike in Brixton Prison, England, the Sinn Féin Lord Mayor of Cork, Terence MacSwiney dies. 1924 – The Zinoviev letter, which Zinoviev himself denied writing, is published in the Daily Mail; the Labour party would later blame this letter for the Conservatives' landslide election win four days later. 1927 – The Italian luxury liner SS Principessa Mafalda sinks off the coast of Brazil, killing 314. 1932 – George Lansbury became the leader of the opposition British Labour Party. 1940 – Benjamin O. Davis Sr. is named the first African American general in the United States Army. 1944 – World War II: Heinrich Himmler orders a crackdown on the Edelweiss Pirates, a loosely organized youth culture in Nazi Germany that had assisted army deserters and others to hide from the Third Reich. 1944 – World War II: The USS Tang under Richard O'Kane (the top American submarine ace of the war) is sunk by the ship's own malfunctioning torpedo. 1944 – World War II: The final attempt of the Imperial Japanese Navy to win the war climaxes at the Battle of Leyte Gulf. 1945 – Fifty years of Japanese administration of Taiwan formally ends when the Republic of China assumes control. 1949 – The Battle of Guningtou in the Taiwan Strait begins. 1962 – Cuban Missile Crisis: Adlai Stevenson shows the United Nations Security Council reconnaissance photographs of Soviet ballistic missiles in Cuba. 1968 – A Fairchild F-27 crashes into Moose Mountain while on approach to Lebanon Municipal Airport in Lebanon, New Hampshire, killing 32 people. 1971 – The People's Republic of China replaces the Republic of China at the United Nations. 1973 – Egypt and Israel accept United Nations Security Council Resolution 339. 1980 – Proceedings on the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction conclude. 1983 – The United States and its Caribbean allies invade Grenada, six days after Prime Minister Maurice Bishop and several of his supporters are executed in a coup d'état. 1990 – The Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic declares its sovereignty from the Soviet Union. 1995 – A commuter train slams into a school bus in Fox River Grove, Illinois, killing seven students. 1997 – After a civil war, Denis Sassou Nguesso proclaims himself President of the Republic of the Congo. 1999 – A Learjet 35 crashes in Mina near Aberdeen, South Dakota, killing all six people on board, including PGA golfer Payne Stewart and golf course designer Bruce Borland. 2001 – Microsoft releases Windows XP, which becomes one of Microsoft's most successful operating systems. 2009 – The October 2009 Baghdad bombings kill 155 and wound at least 721. 2010 – Mount Merapi in Indonesia begins a month-long series of violent eruptions that kill 353 people and cause the evacuation of another 350,000 people. 2010 – A magnitude 7.8 earthquake strikes off Indonesia's Mentawai Islands, triggering a tsunami that kills at least 400 people.

[maisiebraemgrad505]

Information Im using in my Formative

Question: How do the murals in Dublin & Belfast to the present day reflect on events that occurred in the troubles from 1970s-1985?

Key words: The troubles, Propaganda, Ideological, Mural symbolism, Oppression

quotes 

1; “The dramatic visibility and physical presence of murals made them a natural medium for organizations attempting to transmit their ideological message to as wide an audience as possible”

Reference:

Author: Gregory Goalwin Name of article or book: The Art Of War: Instability, Insecurity, Ideological Imagery in Northern Ireland’s Political Murals, 1979-1998 Page number(s): 194 Publisher:Springer Science + Business Media New York 2013

2; “Murals have figured as a prominent feature of the visual environment of Northern Ireland from the origins of Northern Ireland in 1922, on through ‘the Troubles’, to the present period of the peace process. In so doing these murals have evolved into some of the best-known examples of political art in the world”

Reference:

Author: Andrew Hill & Andrew White Name of article or book: Painting Peace? Murals and the Northern Ireland Peace Process Chapter Name (if any): Irish Political studies Vol. 27 No. 1 Page number(s): 71 Publisher: Taylor & Francis

References:

Hill, A., & White, A. (2012). Painting peace? Murals and the Northern Ireland peace process. Irish Political Studies, 27(1), 71- 88. https://doi.org/10.1080/07907184.2012.6361 84

Goalwin, G. (2013). The art of war: Instability, insecurity, and ideological imagery in Northern Ireland’s political murals, 1979– 1998. International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, 26(3), 189-

215. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10767-013-9142-y

Crowley, Tony. "The Art of Memory: The Murals of Northern Ireland and the Management of History." Field Day Review 7 (2011): 22-49. Print. https://scholarship.claremont.edu/cgi/viewconten t.cgi?article=1027&context=scripps_fac_pub

Scull, M. M. (2015). The Catholic Church and the hunger strikes of Terence MacSwiney and Bobby sands. Irish Political Studies, 31(2), 282- 299. https://doi.org/10.1080/07907184.2015.108 4292

Skinner, J. (2015). Walking the falls: Dark tourism and the significance of movement on the political tour of west Belfast. Tourist Studies, 16(1), 23- 39. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468797615588427

Key ideas for Summary

Early murals from both Loyalists and Republicans were used to get their ideological beliefs across to the wider community. 

- symbols and events that furthered their political views

 -Murals reflect on the history of the troubles especially the oppression many people faced during this time. 

 -Current day murals are being reimaged in order to move away from visual imagery that causes for disagreement and hostility between different communities in Ireland. 

-Policies such as “the shared future” are working for unified visual imagery in the effort to steer away from demonstrations of racism as well as sectarianism.  -Murals of Dublin and Belfast have been largely impacted by the troubles and have been used as an expressive outlet. 

-Visualise past historical events and have been used as a form of political propaganda. 

- Over the years murals have begun to shine a more positive light on the troubles with neutral imagery. 

-Belfast and Dublin's murals are now seen as a large tourist attraction that shed some light on Irish traditions and culture. 

[grundoonmgnx]

Hugh C. Charde (Irish, 1858–1946),  Portrait of Terence MacSwiney, Lord Mayor of Cork, 1920 Oil on canvas, 77 x 64cm

[stairnaheireann]

#OTD in 1872 – Birth of Irish patriot, Mary MacSwiney (Maire Nic Shuibhne), in London.

Mary MacSwiney (Máire Nic Suibhne) was born in London to an Irish father and English mother. The family returned to Cork when she was six and she was educated at St. Angela’s Ursuline convent school. She obtained a teaching diploma at Cambridge University and taught at schools in England before returning to Cork on the death of her mother in 1904 to care for younger members of the family. She…

[newyorkthegoldenage]

Eamon de Valera, a leader of the Irish independence movement, delivered an address to a crowd estimated at 40,000 at the Polo Grounds late in 1920. The speech was a memorial in honor of Terence MacSwiney, the Lord Mayor of Cork, who had died in a British prison after a 74-day hunger strike in October.

Photo: NY Times

[hyperions-fate]

Terence MacSwiney, Irish writer and Sinn Féin Lord Mayor of Cork. Following his election as Lord Mayor, MacSwiney was arrested and convicted of sedition by a British military court. He died in Brixton Prison on 25th October 1920 after 74 days on hunger strike.

"It is not they who can inflict the most, but they who can suffer the most, who will conquer."

[aforismidiunpazzo]

Accadde Oggi: 25 Ottobre 1920

Muore Terence MacSwiney, Sinn Féin Lord Mayor of Cork, dopo 74 giorni di sciopero della fame nella prigione di Brixton in Inghilterra.

Continua su Aforismi di un pazzo. 

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 8.11 (After 1900)

1918 – World War I: The Battle of Amiens ends. 1919 – Germany's Weimar Constitution is signed into law. 1920 – The 1920 Cork hunger strike begins which eventually results in the deaths of three Irish Republicans including the Lord Mayor of Cork Terence MacSwiney. 1920 – The Latvian–Soviet Peace Treaty, which relinquished Russia's authority and pretenses to Latvia, is signed, ending the Latvian War of Independence. 1929 – Babe Ruth becomes the first baseball player to hit 500 home runs in his career with a home run at League Park in Cleveland, Ohio. 1934 – The first civilian prisoners arrive at the Federal prison on Alcatraz Island. 1942 – Actress Hedy Lamarr and composer George Antheil receive a patent for a Frequency-hopping spread spectrum communication system that later became the basis for modern technologies in wireless telephones, two-way radio communications, and Wi-Fi. 1945 – Poles in Kraków engage in a pogrom against Jews in the city, killing one and wounding five. 1952 – Hussein bin Talal is proclaimed King of Jordan. 1959 – Sheremetyevo International Airport, the second-largest airport in Russia, opens. 1960 – Chad declares independence from France. 1961 – The former Portuguese territories in India of Dadra and Nagar Haveli are merged to create the Union Territory Dadra and Nagar Haveli. 1962 – Vostok 3 launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome and cosmonaut Andrian Nikolayev becomes the first person to float in microgravity. 1965 – Race riots (the Watts Riots) begin in the Watts area of Los Angeles, California. 1969 – The Apollo 11 astronauts are released from a three-week quarantine following their liftoff from the Moon. 1972 – Vietnam War: The last United States ground combat unit leaves South Vietnam. 1975 – East Timor: Governor Mário Lemos Pires of Portuguese Timor abandons the capital Dili, following a coup by the Timorese Democratic Union (UDT) and the outbreak of civil war between UDT and Fretilin. 1979 – Two Aeroflot Tupolev Tu-134s collide over the Ukrainian city of Dniprodzerzhynsk and crash, killing all 178 aboard both airliners. 1982 – A bomb explodes on Pan Am Flight 830, en route from Tokyo, Japan to Honolulu, Hawaii, killing one passenger and injuring 15 others. 1984 – "We begin bombing in five minutes": United States President Ronald Reagan, while running for re-election, jokes while preparing to make his weekly Saturday address on National Public Radio. 1988 – A meeting between Sayyed Imam Al-Sharif, Osama bin Laden, Abdullah Yusuf Azzam, and leaders of Egyptian Islamic Jihad in Afghanistan culminates in the formation of Al-Qaeda. 1992 – The Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota opens. At the time the largest shopping mall in the United States. 2000 – An air rage incident occurs on board Southwest Airlines Flight 1763 when 19-year-old Jonathan Burton attempts to storm the cockpit, but he is subdued by other passengers and dies from his injuries. 2003 – NATO takes over command of the peacekeeping force in Afghanistan, marking its first major operation outside Europe in its 54-year-history. 2003 – Jemaah Islamiyah leader Riduan Isamuddin, better known as Hambali, is arrested in Bangkok, Thailand. 2006 – The oil tanker MT Solar 1 sinks off the coast of Guimaras and Negros Islands in the Philippines, causing the country's worst oil spill. 2012 – At least 306 people are killed and 3,000 others injured in a pair of earthquakes near Tabriz, Iran. 2017 – At least 41 people are killed and another 179 injured after two passenger trains collide in Alexandria, Egypt.

[corkcitylibraries]

National Heritage Week | Frank O’Connor – Librarian

by Jim McKeon

Writer, Frank O’Connor, was just twenty years of age when he was released from Gormanstown Interment Camp. Cork had been badly hit by the Civil War. It was still a smouldering ruin. Because the city and county had been the focal point of much of the bloodiest fighting the turmoil of the Civil War lingered there longer than it did elsewhere in the country. In the spring of 1924, the city was still edgy. O’Connor had no money and no job. Under the new government all teachers were required to learn the Irish language. For a few months he taught Irish to the teachers at the Protestant school in St Luke’s Cross, near his home. He was paid a few shillings a week for this. He struggled by, a twenty-year old in his father’s patched up, old hand-me-down trousers teaching middle-aged teachers how to speak the Irish language. It was frustrating, especially if you were on the losing side in the Civil War. MacCurtain and MacSwiney had tragically died but he still met Corkery and Seán O’Faoláin regularly. As so often before Daniel Corkery, forever in O’Connor’s background, stepped in and arranged an interview for a job. Cork dramatist, Lennox Robison, who was secretary of the Carnegie Library, was organising rural libraries and he was looking for young men and women to train as librarians. After a tough interview O’Connor got the job. His mother packed his little cardboard suitcase, including a big holy picture of the Sacred Heart, and he set off for Sligo.

 Bust of Frank O’Connor - on display in the City Library, Grand Parade

At last he had enough books to read. Even for 1924, the wages were poor, thirty shillings a week. His lodgings were twenty-seven and sixpence. He had a half-crown (12.5 cent) left for cigarettes and drink. He posted his dirty laundry on to Cork every week. His mother washed it, with unconditional love, and posted it back, and sometimes included five shillings for her son. As a librarian he was all hands. His boss said he was untrainable. He kept busy by reading poetry books and getting them off by heart. He was blessed with a phenomenal memory. The only thing of note in Sligo was that he celebrated his twenty-first birthday far from home. After six months he was sent to Wicklow, where a new library was to be opened.

 When he arrived a local priest wanted to close down the library. Lennox Robinson had just been heavily criticised and fired from his library position because of a controversial story he wrote about a pregnant girl who felt she had mysterious visit by the Holy Ghost. O’Connor’s boss was Geoffrey Phibbs, an influential fellow poet with controversial opinions on many aspects of life. The two young poets became great friends.  Phibbs escorted O’Connor to Dublin and introduced him to Lady Gregory, George Russell (AE) and Yeats. AE was editor of the Irish Statesman and encouraged O’Connor to send him on something for publication. He sent a verse translation of Suibne Geilt Aspires and when AE published it 14 March 1924, it carried for the first time the pseudonym Frank O’Connor. It must be remembered that he was a young civil servant and he may have been contemplating on keeping his job by using a pen name ever since Lennox Robinson’s enforced resignation. He chose his confirmation name, Francis, and his mother’s maiden name, O’Connor. The prominence AE and the Irish Statesman gave him thrust him into literary view. Yeats had great time for O’Connor and said that he did for Ireland what Chekhov did for Russia. But the young librarian missed home and his mother. A vacancy came up in Cork. AE tried to talk him out of it and warned him he’d be miserable back in Cork. It never occurred to O’Connor that he would not return home. Like his father he was, at that stage, a one-town man..

 Notwithstanding AE’s forebodings, he accepted the job of Cork’s first county librarian in December 1925. He was just twenty-two years of age. His salary of five pounds a week was more than anyone in Harrington’s Square had ever dreamed of earning. The library was at twenty-five Patrick Street which was still in the process of being rebuilt.  Minnie was happy that her son was back home again and his father, Big Mick, was impressed that a pension went with his son’s new job. The city was still in a poor condition. The foundation of the Irish Free State in 1922 augured a period of new confidence in Cork. But in 1924 a public inquiry found: 

  …limited progress had been made on rebuilding Cork’s city centre since it had been burned down in 1920. Criticism was made of the poor quality of maintenance of the city streets, many of which were still paved with timber blocks. Part of Anderson’s Quay had fallen into the river. The public water supply was of poor quality…There was virtually no building in progress in the city.  

  In the burning of Cork not alone had many of the character and physical structures of the city been lost, but so also had thousands of jobs and many peoples’ homes. The Cork Examiner reported that thousands were rendered idle by the destruction. The rebuilding was tediously slow mainly because of the shortage of funding. Britain’s refusal to accept blame and pay compensation didn’t help. The Civil War itself and the post-war political divide were also major factors in delaying the building progress. This was another chapter in Frank O’Connor’s Cork, a damaged city struggling to survive. He opened his library over a shop near the corner of Winthrop Street. It was five years since the burning yet major buildings, just yards away, like Roches Stores and Cash & Co, were still rubble. Rebuilding had not yet started in these two well-known shops. In January 1927, Roches Stores finally re-opened for business. Summing up, the burning of Cork had a unifying effect on a people that had been collectively damaged by the event. It also exposed divisions in Cork society at the time. A Church/political divide came to the surface during this traumatic time. It was demonstrated through criticism by councillors of Bishop Coholan for his refusal to condemn the burning. Many republicans were unhappy because they felt the clerical comments were often selective. Frank O’Connor had a huge responsibility for a young and inexperienced man. He was given a cheque for three thousand pounds to set up and stock his library. He made his first mistake. At that time an anti-Catholic bias still lingered in commerce. He naively lodged the cheque in the nearby and more practical catholic bank when the accepted practice was to use the protestant bank. This innocent action caused a major committee dispute and O’Connor was accused of having a personal and ulterior motive. Then, when he insured the building, the insurance company gave him a cheque as a personal thank you. He didn’t want it and kept it for years but never cashed it. He sums up this whole chaotic scenario: 

  By the time the Cork County Council had done with organizing my sub-committee it consisted of a hundred and ten members, and anyone who has ever had to deal with a public body will realize the chaos this involved. Finally I managed to get my committee together in one of the large council rooms, and by a majority it approved my choice of bankers. There was, I admit, a great deal of heat. Some of the councillors felt I had acted in a very high-handed way, and one protested against my appearing in a green shirt – a thing which, he said, he would not tolerate from anybody. 

  When he finally got his stock of books together and organised his new library, he decided that he should have closer contact with the rural community. If they couldn’t come to him then he’d go to them. He bought a van, packed it with boxes of books, and drove all over the county. After six months this affected his health. He was exhausted from working long hours driving all over West Cork and he wrote almost every night. In a letter to old Wicklow colleague, Phibbs, he wrote, I’m working like a brute beast. He became ill and had to have a serious operation in the Bon Secours Hospital. He spent two weeks in hospital and six weeks convalescing. It shows his stubbornness when he shocked the nuns in the hospital by refusing to receive the sacraments before the operation. 

           Cork had a long tradition of theatre and a critical play-going audience, but in 1927 there was only one drama group in the city, the newly formed Cork Shakespearian Company. Daniel Corkery’s little theatre had closed in 1913 and groups like Munster Players, Leeside Players and Father Matthew Players were also defunct. On 8 August 1927 Micheál MacLiammoir and Hilton Edwards brought their touring company to Cork. They performed The High Steppers’in the Pavillion Theatre in Patrick Street. This venue later became a cinema and is presently HMV music shop. After the opening night there was a party at Seán and Geraldene Neeson’s home. Geraldene was Terence MacSwiney’s bridesmaid when he married in England. MacLiammoir encouraged O’Connor to revive drama in Cork. O’Connor was inspired and was instrumental in forming the Cork Drama League. Although he knew nothing about drama he threw himself headlong at the project. Old friend, Seán Hendrick, recalls: 

  That Michael knew nothing about producing plays and I knew nothing about stage-managing them did not trouble us at all…The producer was to be given a free hand in the choice of both plays and cast and members were bound to accept the parts allotted them. There were to be no stars and an all-round uniformity of performance was to be aimed at. 

  Undaunted, Frank O’Connor tore into their new venture. Lennox Robinson’s play, The Round Table, was to be the first production. It was its first appearance in Cork and there were some slight adjustments to suit the local audience. The curtain-raiser was Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard. Typically, O’Connor wrote the programme notes, directed The Round Table, and appeared in both plays. The Round Table was a difficult play to produce. It had fourteen characters. Many of them doubled up and played two roles. They had trouble trying to cast the part of Daisy Drennan, but one night Geraldine Neeson brought along a pretty young girl to audition. Although she had a terrible stammer she was a natural actress. Not alone did she get the part but that night O’Connor walked her home. From then on Nancy McCarthy became his leading lady and for years to come she was to flit in and out of his life. The company’s first play opened on 28 February 1928 in Gregg Hall in the South Mall, a theatre venue no longer used in Cork. They got high praise all round especially Nancy McCarthy. They immediately started rehearsing for their second venture, The Cherry Orchard. Cork City was now back on its feet and completely rebuilt and people were getting used to a new freedom and sense of safety. Theatre was a hugely popular event.  Plays at that time generally had an Irish theme and written by the likes of Yeats, Synge, Robinson and T. C. Murray. That had been the custom and they were very popular with Cork audiences. But the young Frank O’Connor had other ideas. He was into French and German and Russian theatre and he wanted to offer the Cork public something different. 

  English drama, no matter how significant it may be in its own setting can have no beneficial effect upon a country which is subjected to cultural influences only from one source. The Cork Drama League proposes to give the best of American and continental theatre, of Chekhov, of Martine Sierra, of Eugene O’Neill and those other dramatists whose work, as a result of the dominating influence of the English theatre, is quite unknown in Cork.  

  That was a more than subtle dig at Fr, O’Flynn, a local priest, who had founded the Cork Shakespearian Company in 1924. The two men did not get on. From 20 December to 30 December1927 they exchanged four letters in the Cork Examiner trading insults. Fr, O’Flynn signed his letters The Producer while O’Connor used his name in Irish. Seán Hendrick joined in the attack calling himself Spectator. Everyone in Cork knew who both men were. Ironically, they were more alike than they cared to admit; they were two proud Cork men, they both loved Shakespeare and they both loved Irish. Two more plays were produced, The Cherry Orchard and A Doll’s House. Both got fine reviews, but the audiences were poor. Maybe the Cork Drama League was going too far too soon, and Cork wasn’t ready for them. By now O’Connor was spending most of his time with Nancy McCarthy. Nancy was a religious girl from a well-known Cork family. He brought her home to see his mother and the couple went on a three-week holiday to Donegal. They stayed in houses three miles apart. They met every day for a year outside of St, Peter and Paul’s church after mass. They were engaged for a while but it did not work out. She would not marry him. He would not marry in a Catholic church and there was no way Nancy would marry outside the Church. She was one of ten siblings and he was an only child. She felt he was spoiled. This was quite true. By now he was being regularly published in the Irish Statesman. He had a poem dedicated to Nancy published 9 May 1928. The last two lines are filled with melodrama: 

  That even within this darkness of our body keeps  

Communion with the brightness of a world we dream  

  Frank O’Connor was beginning to feel that AE was right. He should never have left Dublin. He was no longer enjoying his years in Cork. It was no longer the place he had known. O’Faoláin was in America and recently he had found it difficult to talk to Corkery. He made it plain that he was taking sides and that O’Connor was on the wrong side. O’Connor was restless and felt that Cork was threatening to suffocate him. He missed Wicklow where he could talk literature and art to Phibbs and go on to Dublin to meet AE and Yeats. AE would give him all the latest books and gossip, and Sunday evening he could go to the Abbey Theatre and see a series of continental plays, Chekhov, Strindberg and contemporary German plays. Eventually, getting frustrated with the parochialism of Cork and his lack of success with Nancy McCarthy, he applied for the job as municipal librarian in Ballsbridge. On Saturday 1 December 1928 he packed his case and left for Dublin. He still felt it was only a temporary move. Nothing could cure him of the notion that Cork needed him and he needed Cork. Nothing but death could ever cure him of this. 

Jim McKeon’s book Frank O’Connor: A Life is available to borrow from Cork City Libraries 

Jim McKeon has been involved in theatre all his life and has many film scripts, plays and books to his name. His best-known work is probably the biography of Frank O'Connor. He also toured Ireland and the US with his one-man-show on the writer's life. Jim is also an award-winning theatre director and poet.

[littlelonghairedoutlawllho]

@wheel-of-fish tagged me to share my TBR pile so this is just a preliminary look at it. Most of these books I have, a couple of them I’m borrowing in the very near future, and one or two I will track down if it takes me all year to do so.

Forgotten Lord Mayor: Donal Óg O’Callaghan 1920-1924 -- Aodh Quinlivan (I’m most of the way through this one and enjoying it immensely)

The Revolutionist: A Play in Five Acts -- Terence MacSwiney

Despite Fools’ Laughter: Poems by Terence MacSwiney -- ed. B.G. MacCarthy

Tomas MacCurtain: Soldier and Patriot -- Florence O’Donoghue

Muriel MacSwiney: Letters to Angela Clifford -- Muriel MacSwiney & Angela Clifford

Wounds: A Memoir of War & Love -- Fergal Keane

A Coward If I Return, A Hero If I Fall: Irishmen in World War I -- Neil Richardson

The Winter Soldier -- Daniel Mason

Grace -- Paul Lynch

Death and Nightingales -- Eugene McCabe

Time Present and Time Past -- Deirdre Madden

How Death Becomes Life -- Joshua Mezrich

The Secret History -- Donna Tartt

The Battle of the Four Courts -- Michael Fewer

The Táin -- trans. Thomas Kinsella

A Ghost in the Throat -- Doireann ní Ghríofa

Love Between Men in English Literature -- Paul Hammond

Terrible Queer Creatures: Homosexuality in Irish History -- Brian Lacey

the long way to a small angry planet -- Becky Chambers

Veiled Warriors: Allied Nurses of the First World War -- Christine E. Hallett

The Binding -- Bridget Collins

Selected Poems 1968-2014 -- Paul Muldoon

Graveyard Clay -- Máirtín Ó Cadhain (trans. Liam Mc Con Iomaire and Tim Robinson)

Traolach Mac Suibhne -- Diarmaid Ó Briain (this one’s completely in Irish so it’s going to be a Translation Adventure)

Remember...it’s for Ireland: A Portrait of Tomás MacCurtain -- Fionnuala MacCurtain

On Another Man’s Wound -- Ernie O’Malley

The Singing Flame -- Ernie O’Malley

Raids and Rallies -- Ernie O’Malley

Old Ireland in Colour -- John Breslin & Sarah-Ann Buckley

Guerilla Days in Ireland -- Tom Barry

Honestly I don’t know who to tag so tagging @madamefaust @notaghost3 and anyone else who wants to do it