Life
1848-1904; b. Waterford, ed. locally and at Tullybeg Jesuit School; solicitor,
1878; bar, 1885; Waterford MP, 1880; Cork, 1885; S. Sligo, 1887; Kildare,
1900; IPP nominee; supported Parnell after Split; appointed ed. of United
Ireland after it had been taken from the anti-Parnellites; Collected
and published fairy tales; some fiction; Irish Fairy Tales (1889;
rep. edn. [Gill] 1906); The Fairy Minstrel of Glenmalure; By the Barrow
River; Golden Spears. d. at Pau; PI, 3 poems in John Francis Meagher’s
Songs for Campaigners. PI JMC IF DIW DIH OCIL.
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Notes
W. P. Ryan, The Irish Literary Revival (1894), Edmund Leamy has
not fared further in that world of delicate and delightful imaginings
which he opened some years ago with his Irish Fairy Tales. A real
poet and a real gael it was who summoned back those charming fairy presences
to Irish haunts. When superior people talk about the Irish intellectual
poverty of the last decade, or wonder where the new literature is to come
from, this is one of the works to show and silence them. As editor of
United Ireland, Mr Leamy in days of painful politics kept many
a corner bright for Irish litterateurs. [145].
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References
Justin McCarthy, Irish Literature (1904) gives prose ‘The
Gold Spears’ from Irish Fairy Tales [once upon a time there
lived in a little house under a hill a little old woman and her two children,
whose names were Connla and Nora. Right on front of the door of the little
house lay a pleasant meadow ..’ (their house is turned into a palace
by a little old man)]; also, ‘A Royal Love’, verse [‘I
loved a love - a royal love -/In the golden long ago’ [...]
And she had stately palace walls/In the golden &c]. Leamy had not
yet died at the time of compilation. B. Waterford, Christmas Day, 1848;
ed. University High School, and Tullabeg College [Jesuit]; called to Irish
bar, 1885; Waterford MP, 1880, Parnellite; unsuccessfully contested Galway,
1900; Irish Fairy Tales [2nd edn. 1906], and The Fairy Minstrel
of Glenmalure; also uncollected stories in Irish newpapers and magazines.
Dictionary of National Biography also lists Edward Daniel Leahy (1797-1875); portrait and subject painter; exhibited RA and British Institution, 1820-53; lived in Italy, 1837-43; painted portraits of many leading Irishmen.
IF lists Irish Fairy Tales [1889], xix+155pp; the new ed. being introduced by John Redmond with note by TPG, ill. ?George Fagan; child audience; draws on O’Curry and Joyce; The Fairy Minstrel of Glenmalure (Duffy, 448pp, n.d.), 48pp. [Irish children, little old men and little old women]; By the Barrow River and Other stories (1907), 20 in number, incl. ghosts, Irish brigade, early Ireland; Golden Spears (1911), American ed. of Irish Fairy Tales.
Hyland Catalogue 220 (Jan. 1996) lists Irish Fairy Tales (2nd edn. 1906), ills. by S. Ua Fagain.
Library of Herbert Bell (Belfast) holds The Fairy Minstrel of Glenmalure [n.d.].
Belfast Central Public Library holds Art MacMurrough Kavanagh (n.d.); Irish Fairy Tales.
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Notes
By the Barrow River, Edmund Leamy, advertised backpages of Sam. Ferguson,
Congal, 1907, (Sealy Bryers & W. n.d.), with review notice
from Cardinal Logue; short stories; review notice also cited from Freeman’s
Journal, Australia.
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)