Life
1840-1883 [née Frances Marcella Attie, m. name O’Brien]; married
name Frances Marcella O’Brien, b. Peafield, nr. Ennis, Co. Clare;
lived aunt’s house Kildysart; contrib. Nation; Weekly Freeman,
Young Ireland, Tinsley’s Magazine; Irish Monthly,
1878-81 (16 poems incl. 1 posthum.); Won By Worth (1892), a novel in which
Capt. Arthur Crosbie wins the heart of Mary Desmond by nursing her brother
through an attack of smallpox; also a novel, The Carradassian Family
(NY Sadlier 1897); rep. from Irish Monthly, with which she was
primarily associated; there are no titles in BL. MKA IF.
Criticism
Mrs. Morgan John O’Connell, Glimpses of a Hidden Life: Memories
of Attie O’Brien (Dublin: M. H. Gill 1887).
James H. Murphy, Catholic Fiction and Social Reality in Ireland, 1873-1922
(Conn: Greenwood Press 1997), Part I: ‘Upper Middle-Class Fiction
1873-1890’, p.27f..
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Notes
Stephen Brown, Ireland in Fiction (Dublin: Maunsel 1919), lists
The Carradassan Family (NY: Sadlier 1897), a novel formerly ser.
in Irish Monthly (Vol XVI 1888), concerning the love of Charles McCarthy,
protegé of Col. F., for Letty, the colonel’s eldest dg., who
is betrothed to Capt. Calvert, and Englishman; Charlie returns from the
US to save the family and marry Letty; the whole is set on the Fitzgerald
estate on the Shannon.
Brian McKenna, Irish Literature, 1800-1875: A Guide to Information Sources (Detroit: Gale Research Co. 1978), cites Mrs. Morgan John O’Connell, Glimpses of a Hidden Life, Memories of Attie O’Brien (Gill 1887) 272pp.; also articles by Matthew Russell (‘In Memoriam’) and others in Irish Monthly and Molua. IF characterises her work as writings of ‘high literary value’; lists The Carradassan Family (1897).
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)