Kate O'Brien,
the writer (novelist and dramatist),
born 3 Dec 1897, Limerick city.
See
wikipedia.
Family home was
Boru House, Mulgrave St, Limerick.
Her mother died 1903, when she was age 5 yrs.
She spent many years as a boarder at
Laurel Hill,
Limerick.
"I've always been alone",
she said in an interview in later life.
Her father died June 1916.
She was orphaned at age 18.
She was
educ UCD.
She was friends with the children of
James O'Mara.
She was
especially friends with
Pat Lavelle.
[O'Brien, 1969]
recalls that:
"in childhood and on through the university I was friends with
the elder children of James" [O'Mara].
Her sister married in
Feb 1918 to James O'Mara's younger brother Stephen O'Mara.
Kate
worked as secretary to James O'Mara
when he was in the USA, in Washington, DC,
around 1920.
She lived in England.
She
mar c.1924, London, to Gustav Renier [or Gustaaf, Dutch journalist].
No issue.
They quickly separated.
[Muffie de Courcy] said she came home to Limerick in tears
shortly after marriage,
saying he was bringing women back to the house.
Old
Stephen O'Mara
advised her to leave him.
She lived in Spain for a time.
Debut novel in 1931.
Her novels became very popular, despite some of them being banned.
She was possibly the most popular
Irish woman novelist of her time.
See Her works.
During
WW2
she worked for
Ministry of Information
in London.
Lived Roundstone, Connemara, from 1949 to 1960
[O'Brien, 1969].
She
died Canterbury,
Kent, 13 Aug 1974, age 76 yrs.
She was
bur Faversham, Kent.
See grave.
Tells story of a family of Catholic merchants (the "Considines")
who rose from poverty in the 18th century to great 19th century prosperity.
Set in "Mellick", a fictional equivalent of Limerick.
The Considine who first comes to "Mellick" in 1789
is a horse thief.
His son founds the family business in 1810 and
rises to great prosperity.
The story spans from 1789 to 1877.
It is very evocative of the history of the O'Mara family,
with the history of the O'Brien family in there too.
There are contradictory memories of it in the O'Mara family.
Some say the O'Maras saw family members
as characters in it.
Others say the O'Maras saw it just as fiction.
Biography
says:
"A chronicle of middle-class Irish life, it is, in effect,
an Irish Forsyte Saga.
Its theme would be constant throughout her novels,
namely the struggle (particularly the struggle of Irish women)
for individual freedom and love against the constricting demands of family,
bourgeois society and Catholic religion."
The Ante-Room (novel, 1934).
A sort of sequel to Without My Cloak.
Set in the fictional Limerick.
The Considine family and their relations appear.
But it is a quite different book to Without My Cloak.
No sweeping family drama.
Rather it is an intimate story about a small group of people and their problems and desires.
Little in it that one can relate to the O'Mara family history,
apart from the setting, which is like Strand House.
Mary Lavelle (novel, 1936).
Based on her experiences in Spain.
Has a character struggling with her lesbian feelings.
Banned in Ireland for "obscenity".
Note that Kate O'Brien was a good friend of
Pat Lavelle.
There was a story that for criticising
Franco
in this book,
she was banned from Spain for 20 years.
And she was allowed back into Spain in 1957
through the intervention of her in-law
Michael Rynne,
Irish Ambassador to Spain.
Another version of the story
says she was banned from Spain
because of her portrayal of
Philip II
in That Lady (1946).
But
Michael Rynne in a 1976 letter in
[P133/3]
says he knows nothing about it.
See letter to him,
and transcript of reply.
In fact, Kate O'Brien may never have been banned from Spain.
The Land of Spices (autobiographical novel, 1941).
Based on her long years as a boarder at Laurel Hill.
Set in a fictional equivalent of Limerick.
Banned in Ireland because of a reference to (male) homosexuality.
Complaining about the censorship,
Sir John Keane, 5th Baronet
read out in the Irish Senate
the offending passage
on
18 Nov 1942.
The offending words,
and other censored works he read out,
were deleted from the Senate record
- the first occasion on which the Senate censored itself.
The
debate in the Senate
carried on into Dec 1942.
The "Considine" family of "Mellick" (Limerick)
in
Without My Cloak (1931)
does strongly resemble the
O'Mara family
(with the dates pushed back one generation).
There are also similarities with the
O'Brien family
(also with the dates pushed back one generation).
One thing about the book is that it is an affectionate portrayal of the family.
Even the "villains" of various sub-plots are not actually bad people.
It is very positive about human nature.
A sketch of the fictional "Considine" family tree would be as follows.
All the links in the Considine tree
are to people and things in the O'Mara tree
that it resembles.
Anthony Considine.
He was from somewhere W of Mellick.
He arrived in Mellick
in 1789 on a stolen horse.
He mar in Mellick to a widow and shopkeeper.
He died 1790 in a fight.
They had issue:
John Considine,
"Honest John",
born 1790 in poverty in old part of Mellick.
He started family business 1810 in the old quarter.
He mar 1813 to a girl from next street.
He built up business from nothing, rose to great wealth.
He became an Alderman of Mellick before 1843.
Supporter of Daniel O'Connell.
His wife died 1845.
The
business moved to the New Town
in 1851.
He lived as a widower in a fine town house in the New Town.
He died 1861, age 71 yrs.
They had issue:
Eddy Considine, born 1825,
went into family business, Considine's agent in London.
Anthony Considine,
born 1826, youngest son.
He went into family business.
He mar in 1855.
He built in 1860 a fine new house, "River Hill", by the river
in grounds just outside the city (to the N).
He took over family business after his father. Mayor of Mellick 1870.
He had issue:
Kate O'Brien was tolerant of sexual diversity and sexual freedom,
and was an unusually gay-positive writer for the time.
There is a central lesbian romance in
As Music and Splendour,
there is a character struggling with lesbian feelings
in Mary Lavelle
and there is a reference to male homosexuality in
The Land of Spices.
There is an ongoing debate as to whether Kate O'Brien was a lesbian.
The evidence is mixed.
Some who knew her, for example
[Reynolds, 1987],
dispute that she was lesbian.
Whether she was lesbian or bisexual is not at all clear in her work.
For example, she writes brilliantly about passionate heterosexual love in
Without My Cloak.
The strange 1980 edition of
The Ante-Room:
There is a rather strange 1980 edition of
The Ante-Room by Arlen House, The Women's Press.
The text is
surrounded by value judgements
that Kate O'Brien would not agree with.
Eavan Boland
writes an introduction (quoted on the back cover)
where she expresses a strong dislike for the bourgeois Catholic Ireland
that Kate O'Brien writes about.
Boland writes:
"It is Kate O'Brien's achievement to make us love these selfish merchant souls.
They are dross. We know they are dross."
Boland says:
"It is not a place or a time or a people we can be proud of".
No reason for these strange value judgements is given.
It is unclear what the publishers have against upwardly-mobile Catholic Ireland.
But it is clear that Kate O'Brien herself does not express such views.
Hers is at heart an affectionate portrayal of the prosperous middle-class Ireland she came from.
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