Life
?1780-1851 [var. 1778]; dg. of Brian Devlin and niece of Michael Dwyer;
she acted in the role of ‘housekeeper’ to Robert Emmet, and
styled his devoted servant, carrying messages for him after the Rising
in 1803; arrested and tortured in Kilmainham and Dublin Castle; refused
to divulge details of the conspiracy; released after other United Irishmen;
married, and widowed in 1845; spent the remainder of her life in poverty,
refused R. B. Sheridan’s invitation to supply her story of a play
as ‘too recent and too galling’; lived on in the Dublin slums
(Liberties) and discovered there by Br. Luke Cullen who transcribed her
story in old age; object of collection of £5 raised by The Nation,
and doled out in half-crowns; d. 18 Sept.; buried in pauper’s grave,
and later reinterred near O’Connell Monument. Befriended by
Dr. Robert R. Madden, who was absent from Ireland at the time of her death
but arranged for her exhumation from a pauper’s grave, and organised
her reinterral with a monument in Glasnevin; there is an anon. portrait
of Devlin by the National Library of Ireland. DIB OCIL.
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Criticism
John Finegan, Anne Devlin: Patriot and Heroine (1968; rep Elo Publ.1992),
148pp.
John Finegan, review of Anne Devlin: Patriot and Heroine [1968] (1992), in Books Ireland (March 1993).
Luke Gibbons, Transformations in Irish Culture (Field Day/Cork UP 1996), ‘The Politics of Silence: Anne Devlin, Women and Irish Cinema’, pp.107-116: detailed discussion of ‘Pat Murphy’s film, Anne Devlin (1984);
Éamonn MacThomáis, The Lady at the Gate (Dublin, Joseph Clarke 1971).
Hester Piatt, Anne Devlin: An Outline of Her Story [reiss. pamph.; n.d.].
Maureen S. G. Hawkings, ‘The Dramatic Treatment of Robert Emmet and Sarah Curran’, in S. F. Gallagher, ed., Women in Irish Legend, Life and Literature (Gerards Cross: Colin Smythe 1983).
Kevin Barry, ‘Cinema and Feminism: The Case of Anne Devlin’, The Furrow, 36, 4 (April 1985).
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Notes
Kevin Rockett, et al., eds, Cinema & Ireland (1988), lists
Anne Devlin, dir. Pat Murphy (1984), photography by Thaddeus O’Sullivan,
a non-commercial film-project; Rockett remarks on the reinstatement of
nature ... as a space outside language, a source of authenticity and integrity
beyond the facade of social and symbolic practices; further, Anne Devlin
(Brid Brenna) the faithful servant ... retreat[s] into silence, the denial
of language, in order to withstand &c. Robert Emmet played by Bosco
Hogan. [q.p.].
Programme of Walter Reade Theatre (1994) cites Anne Devlin (1984), 124 mins., a film dir. by Pat Murphy, photography Thaddeus O’Sullivan; described as epic deconstruction of one of Ireland’s most romanticised historical events; Anne Devlin (Brid Brennan) is alone in her refusal to play Judas despite near hanging; a sort of stone in the way of conventional heroics; her English captor and Emmet too far gone in mythic martyrdom to want or value this strange woman’s peculiar honour; mesmerising dramatisation of the power of passivity and seductiveness of historical image-making.
Martyrology: Patrick Pearse gave an account of the torture of Anne Devlin by
soldiers who ‘pricked her breast with bayonets until the blood spurted
out in their faces’ (in his lecture on Robert Emmet in New York,
2 & 9 March, 1914; cited in Jeanne A. Flood, ‘Joyce, Pearse and
the Theme of Execution, in Drury, ed., Irish Studies, I, 1980, p.111.)
Fraser Drew (‘Ghosts of Kilmainham’, Éire-Ireland, 4, 3, Autumn 1969), writes of a visit to Anne Devlin's Yard in Kilmainham Jail, noting that it may have been the site of ‘her famous meeting with Robert Emmet, staged by the British in the hope of startling the two into a betrayal of their collaboration.' (pp.110-13; p.112.)
Portrait: There is a portrait of Anne Develin [sic] in Helen Landreth, The Pursuit of Robert Emmet (Dublin: Browne & Nolan 1949), p.160 [facing]; original in NLI. NOTE that Moya Cannon has written a seven-poem series for her (see Oar, Salmon Press 1991).
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)