Mary Anne Kelly [“Eva of the Nation”]

Life
1825-1910 [vars. Mary Anne, Mary Eva, Eva Mary; ‘Eva of The Nation’]; b. grandfather’s house, a Mr O’Flaherty, at Headford, Co. Galway; priv. educated; early translations incl. Lamartine’s Dying Christian; ‘the banshee’ accepted by The Nation; also contrib. to Irish Tribune; several pseuds. before settling on ‘Eva ‘with ‘Lament for Davis’, used exclusively thereafter; also prose; bolstered Kevin Izod O’Doherty’s determination to refuse the plea bargain; m. O’Doherty in Kingstown (Dun Laoghaire), 1855; briefly settled in Paris; O’Doherty elected to Legislative Assembly, Queensland; Meath MP, 1886; returned to Australia; survived him by 5 years; Poems (1877); Selections (1908); Poems by Eva of the Nation (San Francisco 1877); d. Brisbane, May 1910. CAB PI DNB DBIV DIB DIW DIH MKA OCIL

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Works
Poems by ‘Eva’ of the Nation (San Francisco 1877), rev. and enl. ed., pref. Seumas MacManus and memoir by Justin MacCarthy (Dublin: MH Gill & Son 1909).

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Criticism
‘Irish Literary Celebrities 5: Mary Izod O’Doherty’, in The Nation (8 Dec. 188[?]).

Justin McCarthy, ‘Eva of the Nation’, in Seumus MacManus, ed., Poems by Eva of the Nation, intro. William Hickey (Dublin: Gill 1909) [‘prepared by authoress’].

P. J. Dillon, in Capuchin Annual (1933); “‘Eva’ of The Nation” [obit.], in The Irish Book Lover, Vol. I, No. 12 (July, 1910), p.163 [‘Eva Mary Kelly’].

Chris Morash, The Hungry Voice (1989), , p.65.

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Notes

Stopford. A. Brooke & T. W. Rolleston, eds., A Treasury of Irish Verse (1900) incls. poems; see also anthologies by Michael MacDermott, Varian, et al.

John Cooke, ed., Dublin Book of Irish Verse 1728-1909 (Dublin: Hodges, Figgis 1909); bio-dates, 1825- ; ‘To Erin’; ‘Remembrance’ (from the Irish); The Nation’s ‘Eva’, Mary Eva, Mrs. [Kevin Izod] O’Doherty.

Brian Cleeve & Anne Brady, A Dictionary of Irish Writers (Dublin: Lilliput 1985), err, dg. of Kevin Izod O’Doherty.

Belfast Public Library holds Poems by Eva (1877, 1907) [?recte 1909].

Annie Keary, Castle Daly (1875) contains a dialogue between Mr. Thornley and Ellen, as follows: ‘I shall begin to think you are the “Eva” or the “Speranza” who write pathetic treason in the Nation’; ‘Don’t sneer at them, please. I have read verses of their that I should indeed be proud to have written.’ (p.301).

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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)