Life
1894-1963 [fam. ‘Tessa’; occas. err. Deevey]; b. Waterford;
youngest of 13 children of a successful draper at Kilkenny, himself the
son of farmers and a nationalist, moving later to Waterford, and living
at first at 3 Eldon Tce., 1876, and later at Passage Rd. (d. 1897); who
died when she was three; her mother was a Feehan, one uncle being Lord
Mayor and the other a Land League priest; ed. Ursuline Convent School
and effected by religious training; contrib. ‘Should Women have Equal
Social and Political Rights?’ to school journal; suffered from Mènier’s
disease from late teens, leading to total deafness before she left college;
matriculated and entered UCD, 1913, Arts and teacher training; transferred
to UCC and completed Arts there; lived in Waterloo Rd., Dublin, with her
sister Nell (d.1954); wrote Abbey play Reapers (30 March 1930;
dir Lennox Robinson), with national theme, eliciting effusive thanks from
A. J. Leventhal; other Abbey plays incl. Temporal Powers (1932),
praised highly in letter from Frank O’Connor; The King of Spain’s
Daughter (29 April 1935), successfully revived in the 1970s; Katie
Roche (16 March 1936) - published in Famous Plays for 1935-36
(1936) - quickly followed by Light Falling (25 Oct. 1936);
The Wild Goose (9 Nov. 1936), centred on Martin Shea and set in
the aftermath of the battle of the Boyne; spoke out against the Censorship
Board and particularly the case of Eric Cross’s Tailor and Anstey;
Wife to James Whelan rejected by Ernest Blythe at the Abbey, and
also by the Gate, 1937; wrote exclusively for radio after 1936, producing
Going Beyond Alma’s Glory, and Within A Marble City;
her plays The King of Spain’s Daughter and The Enthusiast
produced by Denis Johnston on BBC NI (1938); elected Irish Academy
of Letters, 1954. NCBE DIB DIW DIL OCIL
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Works
Three Plays (London: Macmillan 1939), contains Katie Roche,
Wild Goose, and King of Spain’s Daughter; also
King of Spain’s Daughter and Other One Act Plays by Teresa Deevy
(Dublin: New Frontiers Press 1947), contains King of Spain’s Daughter;
In search of Valour [otherwise A Disciple); and Strange
Birth [20 works in all.]; also
‘The Enthusiast’, One Act Play Magazine, 1 (1938); ‘Going Beyond Alma’s Glory’, in Irish Writing, 17 (December 1951), pp.21-32.
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Criticism
Robert Hogan, After the Irish Renaissance (Minneapolis UP 1967).
J D Riley, ‘On Teresa Deevy’s Plays’, Irish Writing, 32 (Autumn 1955) [n.p.]; also Irish University Review [Special Jubilee Issue,] ‘Teresa Deevy and Irish Women Playwrights’, [q. ed.,] (May 1995).
Sean Dunne, ed., ‘Teresa Deevy Special Number’ Journal of Irish Literature, Vol. XIV, No.2 (May 1985).
Sean Dunne, ed., ‘Teresa Deevy Special Number’ Journal of Irish Literature, Vol. XIV, No.2 (May 1985).
Eibhar Walshe, ‘Lost Dominions: European Catholicism and Irish Nationalism in the Plays of Teresa Deevy’, in Irish University Review, 25, 1 (Spring-Summer 1995), pp.133-42.
Robert Welch, The Abbey Theatre, 1899-1999: Form and Pressure (OUP 1999), pp.124-27.
[?]Scott, et al., Ireland in Proximity: History, Gender, Space (London: Routledge 1999).
Mary Rose Callaghan, ‘Teresa Deevey’, in Robert Hogan, ed., Dictionary of Irish Literature (1979).
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Notes
D. E. S. Maxwell (Modern Irish Drama, 1984) lists under Teresa
Deevy (?-1963), Three Plays, Katie Roche, The King of Spain’s
Daughter, The Wild Goose (Lon. 1939).
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)