Life
1907-1966 [née Kelly]; b. Rathangan, Co. Kildare; ed. Brigidine
Convent, Carlow, where she underwent teacher-training; went to Madrid
Spain as an au pair, 1925; acted as governess and later sec. to Princess
Bibesco in Spain, who freed her from au pair bondage; acted as ‘foreign
correspondent’ for Banco Calamarte; wrote journalism for El Debate;
returned to marry; returned to Ireland to marry
a man with whom she had corresponded while in Madrid (1928); worked as journalist and broadcaster, running
children’s programmes; the best known novels relate her experiences;
Never No More (1942), set in Co. Kildare and much concerned her
beloved grandmother and her death at Derrymore House; Touched by the
Thorn (1943), containing an account of a heroine who commits marital
infidelity; won Irish Women Writers Award but banned in Ireland, and reissued
as Alone We Embark (1943); No More than Human (1944); Lift
Up Your Gates (1946), the story of Chrissie, a slum-girl, and her
encounters with other people, issued as Liffey Lane in America
(1947); numerous children’s stories incl. Gold of Glanaree
(NY: Longmans, Green 1945); The Cottage in the Bog (1946); Green
Orchard (1949), featuring Tinkler the cat who runs away to the circus;
adapted Liffey Lane for RTÉ as Tolka Row, the
station’s first soap-opera, 1964-68; lived on Fitzwilliam Sq.; d.
26 July, Dublin; her novels included abundant culinary information; her
fairy tales collected posthumously as The Queen of Aran’s Daughter
(1995), with foreword by Pat Donlon; a son, Jimmy, died tragically
in the 1970s. IF DIW DIL KUN IN DIB OCIL
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Works
Fiction, Never No More¸ pref. by Seán O’Faolain
(London/NY: Longmans 1942) [also Virago 1985, 1992]; Alone We Embark
(London: Longmans 1943), and Do., issued in America as Touched
by the Thorn (NY: Longmans, Green 1943); No More than Human
(London: Longmans 1944; 2nd imp. 1945), (iv), 5-231pp.; Do. rep.
(London: Virago 1986); Gold of Glanaree (NY: Longmans, Green 1945);
The Cottage in the Bog (Dublin: Browne & Nolan 1946) [var.
1945]; Do., rep. (Dublin: Town House. 1992), 124pp., ill. Barry
Castle; [a children’s book, 7-11s, well-known as Patricia Lynch in
its day]; Lift Up Your Gates (London: Longmans, Green 1946; 2nd
imp. 1947), vi, 7-250pp., Do., as Liffey Lane (NY: Longmans,
Green 1947); The Green Orchard (London: Longmans, Green [1949]);
The Queen of Aran’s Daughter, foreword Pat Donlon (Dublin:
Poolbeg 1995) [seven prev. unpub. fairy-tales; ill. Barry Castle, her
dg.].
Miscellaneous, Flour Economy (Dublin: Browne & Nolan [1941]); Maura Laverty’s Cookbook (London: Longmans, Green 1946; NY&Toronto: Longmans, Green 1947); Kind Cooking (Dublin: Elect. Supply Board [1955]); Full and Plenty (Irish Flour Millers Assoc. 1960, 2nd ed. 1966).
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Criticism
Luke Gibbons, ‘From Kitchen Sink to Soap; Drama and the Serial Form
on Irish Television’, in Transformations in Irish Culture (Cork
UP 1996), pp.44-69.
Maura Laverty, ‘Profile’, RTV Guide, 13 May, 1966, p.15; Gibbons, p.56.)
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Notes
Belfast Central Public Library holds Alone We Embark (1944); Kind Cooking
(n.d.); Never No More (1942); No More than Human (1950).
Maura Laverty scripted Tolka Row, 1964-68, with script-editor Carolyn Swift, and latterly joined by Wesley Burrowes, who created The Riordans; Laverty, living at Fitzwilliam Sq., said she ‘came to know the horror and warmth of the nearby slums. She found the women there more akin to the countrywomen she had grown up with than anything she found among the city’s bourgeoisie’
Tinker and the Green Orchard (Dublin: Town House 1992), in which
Tinkler, a cat tired of being polite, runs away, is snatched to perform
in Flanagan’s Mammoth Circus, and a rosy old lady helps him and his
travelling companions escape.
Seán O’Faoláin, preface to Never No More (1942), and Maeve Binchy prefaces the Virago reprint (1985); also reissue (Virago 1992), 284pp.
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)