Life
1907-1966; b. Sligo; bank clerk and later head of script writing for RTÉ.
Novels include Singing River (1944); Captain Boycott (1946);
The Quest for Matt Talbot (1949). DIB DIW IF2 DIL
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Notes
James Cahalan, Great Hatred, Little Room, The Irish Historical
Novel (1983), Philip Rooney returned to the romantic world of Redmond
O’Hanlon in North Road (1940) and dramatised the late-19th
c. Land War in Captain Boycott (1946), but these books were ...
popular documentaries rather than novels. [133].
Noël Debeer, ‘The Irish Novel Looks Backward’, in Rafroidi and Maurice Harmon, eds., The Irish Novel in Our Time, Université de Lille 1975-76, pp.106-23, espec. p.110ff.: ‘[in Catp. Boycott] Rooney also opposes the parish priest who favours the Land League, prividing it should use peacful methods, to a Fenian leader whose only thought is to fight the British Army.’ (p.111).
Robert Hogan (ed.), Dictionary of Irish Literature (Gill & Macmillan 1979); entry speaks of his ‘Historical dash’
in poetry. 966), incls. William Rooney, being one of the poets treated
under the section heading “Anglo-Irish Literature” (pp.1045-1067).
Kevin Rockett, et al., eds., Cinema & Ireland (1988); Film, Captain Boycott, Dir. Frank Launder (1945 in index sic.), suggest that collective violence leads to social breakdown, not cohesion; with Stewart Granger as Hugh Davin; date given here as 1947; argues for constitutional Home Rule with Parnell against Fenian militancy.
Libraries: Belfast Public Library holds Golden Coast (1947); Long Day (1951); North Road (1946); Singing River (1944). University of Ulster Library holds Captain Boycott.
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)