Life
1896-1982; b. 10 May, Malin, Co. Donegal; dg. district inspector in the
Royal Irish Constabulary; ed. Alexandra College, Dublin; a school in Normandy,
France and TCD; married historian Edmund Curtis, 1922; then Liam O’Flaherty,
1926, with one child; separated 1932; moved to England in 1930s; contrib.
to Tribune woman’s page; organized support for Republican
side in Spanish Civil War; helped refugees from Nazi Germany; acclaimed
novel, My Cousin Justin (1939), based on her relationship with
O’Flaherty; moved to West Cork where she wrote articles and short
stories; d. 8 March; collection short stories David’s Daughter,
Tamar (1982) published postumously. IF2 ATT DIL
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Works
My Cousin Justin (London: Jonathan Cape 1939), and Do. [rep.
edn.] (Belfast: Blackstaff 1990), 288p.; William Trevor, intro., David’s
Daughter Tamar (Dublin: Wolfhound 1982), short stories.
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Notes
Desmond Clarke, Ireland in Fiction [Pt. II] (Cork: Royal
Carbery 1985) summarises My Cousin Justin (1939), in which Loulie
and her cousin Justin are brought up together in an old Huguenot mansion
in Donegal; Loulie goes on to attend TCD; Justin enlists in 1914; Loulie
saves a rebel in 1916 and marries him; she discovers that she cannot identify
with the new Ireland; it is a mismatch; Justin does something the same;
the cousins come together and return to the old mansion. See also Mary
Campbell, review of 1990 rep. edn. of same, in Books Ireland (Summer
1991).
Ann Owens Weekes, Attic Guide to Published Works of Irish Women Literary Writers (Dublin: Attic Press 1994), writes that My Cousin Justin deals with Donegal life in WWI period, and the arrival of prejudice in children’s world. Describes Ulster Volunteer movement as arising out of fear, ‘fear of the native Catholic Irish, oppressed for centuries and now since the days of Parnell asserting themselves more and more, and the more tangible fear of the workers. As usual it was the less real fear that was emphasised. The factory-owners, the ship builders, the newspapers and the bourgeoisie declared with every breath they took that Home Rule was Rome Rule, and the worker was for the hundredth time deceived.’ (My Cousin Justin, pp.78-79.)
Katie Donovan, A. N. Jeffares & Brendan Kennelly, eds., Ireland’s Women (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan 1994) contain extracts from Ferocious Irish Women (1991); also in My Cousin Justin (Belfast: Blackstaff 1990).
Liam O’Flaherty (1897-1984) dedicated his novel Spring
Sowing (London: Jonathan Cape 1924) to Margaret Barrington, while
their relationship is the subject of a novel cited but not named by reviewer
of O’Flaherty’s Letters, ed. A. A. Kelly (Books Ireland,
May 1997, p.127.).
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)