Life
1857-1917 [pseuds. ‘Antares Skorpios’ and ‘Felix
Ryark’]; b. Clontarf, Co. Dublin, daughter of Rev. James William
Barlow, later vice-provost of TCD; spent her life in a thatched cottage,
Raheny, Dublin; wrote ballads and tales of peasant life in Ireland [var.
west of Ireland], chiefly about Lisconnel and Ballyhoy [now Dollymount];
her poetry collections include Bog-land Studies (1892); The
End of Elfintown (1894), Ghost-Bereft (1901), a narrative poem;
The Mockers and Other Verses (1908); Doings and Dealings (1913);
Between Doubting and Daring (1916); reputedly admired by Swinburne;
issued Irish Idylls (1892), short-story sketches in which Lisconnel
is said to stand ‘in the common light of day, a hard fact with no
fantastic myths to embellish or disprove it’; a second series appeared
as Strangers at Lisconnel (1895), to be followed by Maureen’s
Fairing and Other Stories (1895); Mrs Martin’s Company and
Other Stories (1896); A Creel of Irish Stories (1897); From
the East unto the West (1898); From the Land of the Shamrock (1900);
By Beach and Bog Land (1905); Irish Neighbours (1907), and
Irish Ways (1909); her novels in the same vein were Kerrigan’s
Quality (1894) and The Founding of Fortunes (1902), the tale
of an impoverished youth from a bog-cabin home who gets rich by devious
means; joined with Lady Gregory, Hyde, AE, W. B. Yeats, and others in
"An Appeal from Irish Authors" (Freeman’s Journal,
13 Dec. 1904), protesting the Corporation’s decision about the Hugh
Lane Gallery; widely read in England and America but increasingly scorned
by the literary revivalists in Ireland, George Birmingham and Yeats both
excluding her from story-collections; d. 17 April, St Valerie, Bray. DNB
JMC CAB DIW DIB DIL KUN DIH SUTH FDA OCIL
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Works
Poetry, Bog-land Studies (London: T. Fisher Unwin 1892),
and Do., enl. edn. (London: Hodder, Stoughton 1893); another. edn.
(1894); The End of Elfintown (London: Macmillan 1894); Ghost-Bereft
(London: Smith, Elder 1901); The Mockers and Other Verses (London:
George Allen 1908); Doings and Dealings (London: Hutchinson 1913);
Between Doubting and Daring (Oxford: Blackwell 1916).
Stories, Irish Idylls (London: Hodder & Stoughton 1892; 5th edn., 1895), viii, 284pp.; Maureen’s Fairing and Other Stories (London: J. M. Dent; NY: Macmillan 1895), rep. edn. (NY: Books for Libraries Press 1972); Strangers at Lisconnel: A Second Series of Irish Idylls (London: Hodder & Stoughton; NY: Dodd, Mead 1895); Mrs Martin’s Company and Other Stories (London: Dent 1896), xii, 218pp.; A Creel of Irish Stories (London: Methuen 1897; NY: Dodd, Mead 1898); From the East unto the West (London: Methuen 1898); From the Land of the Shamrock (NY: Dodd, Mead 1900; London: Methuen 1901); By Beach and Bog Land (London: T. Fisher Unwin 1905); Irish Neighbours (London: Hutchinson 1907), viii, 342pp.; Irish Ways (London: George Allen 1909; rep. 1970); Doings and Dealings (London: Hutchinson 1913).
Novels, Kerrigan’s Quality (London: Hodder & Stoughton 1894); The Founding of Fortunes (London: Methuen 1902), 335pp. [Mac’s Adventures; Mice and Men, appears to be by her father.]
Miscellaneous, A History of a World of Immortals without God: translated from an Unpublished Manuscript in the Library of a Continental University, by Antares Skorpios (Dublin: William McGee; London: Simpkin, Marshall 1891
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- W. P. Ryan, The Irish Literary Revival: Its History, Pioneers and Possibilities (London: Paternoster Steam Press 1894), p.146 [infra];
- W. B. Yeats, Commentary on a list of ‘Thirty Best Irish Books’, in Daily Express (Dublin), 27 Feb. 1895 [Wade, ed., Letters, pp.246-51; p.248; infra];
- W. J. Paul, Modern Irish Poetry (Belfast Steam Printing Co. Ltd. 1897), Vol. II, p.108 [infra];
- J. M. Synge, "The Old and New in Ireland", in The Academy and Literature (6 Sept. 1902), rep. Collected Works, ed. Alan Price, (London: OUP 1966), [Vol. II: Prose], pp.383-86, p.383 [infra];
- Dominic Daly, The Young Douglas Hyde: The Dawn Of The Irish Revolution And Renaissance, 1874-1893, (Dublin: Irish University Press 1974), pp.160 & 221 [infra];
- Benedict Kiely, Poor Scholar: A Study of the Works and Days of William Carleton 1794-1869 (London & NY: Sheed & Ward, 1947; Dublin: Talbot Press 1972), p.136 [infra];
- Patricia Boylan, All Cultivated People: A History of The United Arts Club, Dublin (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe 1988), p.108f. [infra].
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Notes
Belfast Public Library holds 15 titles including Mrs Martin’s Company;
The Mockers and other Verses; Maureen’s Fairing; Irish Ways; Irish Idylls;
Doings and Dealings; Kerrigan’s Quality; Mac’s Adventures; The Ghost Bereft;
The Founding of Fortunes; A Creel of Irish Stories; From the East to the
West.
Barlow joined with S. H. Butcher, Augusta Gregory, Douglas Hyde, Somerville & Ross, Emily Lawless, George Russell, and W. B. Yeats in ‘An Appeal
from Irish Authors’ (Freeman’s Journal, 13 Dec. 1904), protesting
against the corporation judgement on Hugh Lane’s [Municipal] gallery.’
(See Adrian Frazier, ‘Paris, Dublin: Looking at George Moore Looking at
Manet’, in New Hibernia Review, 1, 1, Spring 1997, pp.19-30).
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)