The Best of Frank O'Connor Read online

  DATE AUTHOR’S LIFE LITERARY CONTEXT

  1912 Taught by Daniel Corkery, poet, painter and novelist, who encourages his use of Irish and for a time is almost a surrogate father. Lady Gregory: Irish Folk History Plays.

  Pound: Ripostes.

  Mann: Death in Venice.

  Alain-Fournier: Le GrandMeaulnes.

  1913 Transferred to the North Monastery, a school run by the Christian Brothers, renowned for strict discipline. He is unhappy and frequently absent. Shaw: Pygmalion. Lawrence: Sons and Lovers. Proust: A la Recherche du temps perdu (to 1927).

  1914 Father re-enlists in British Army to fight in World War I. Home life becomes peaceful and enjoyable in his father’s absence. Begins borrowing books from library and reads omnivorously, which becomes a lifelong habit. Teaches himself rudimentary German and French. Yeats: Responsibilities. Joyce: Dubliners; A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man begins serialization in The Egoist. Saki: Beasts and Super-Beasts.

  1915 The monks decide that he is not university material and suggest a transfer to Trade School. Ford: The Good Soldier. Woolf: The Voyage Out. Lawrence: The Rainbow.

  1916 End of formal education. Brief attendance at Trade School. George Moore: The Brook Kerith.

  1917 Intensified efforts at self-education. Takes a number of temporary jobs to earn money with which to buy books. Later in the year his first work (never found) is published in a children’s newspaper. In the same week he gives a lecture, in Irish, on Goethe. Yeats: The Wild Swans at Coole.

  Eliot: Prufrock and other Observations.

  Freud: Introduction to Psychoanalysis.

  1918 Enlists in the First Cork Brigade of the Irish Republican Army and does various odd jobs for it. Gets scholarship to Gaelic League School to learn to teach Irish. Moore: A Story-Teller’s Holiday. Strachey: Eminent Victorians.

  1919 Translates Du Bellay’s sonnet, ‘Heureux qui, comme Ulysse’ into Irish. Published in an English literary journal, it is praised in the (Irish) Sunday Independent. Shaw: Heartbreak House. Yeats: The Player Queen. Kafka: In the Penal Colony.

  HISTORICAL EVENTS

  Asquith presents third Home Rule Bill to Parliament. Ulster Covenant pledges opposition to Home Rule. Irish Labour Party founded. Sinking of the Titanic.

  Home Rule Bill passes the Commons but the Lords are still able to delay it temporarily. Ulster Volunteer Force set up. Irish Volunteer Force (IVF) raised in the South. Strike of Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union in Dublin; James Connolly founds Irish Citizens’ Army (ICA) to protect strikers. Woodrow Wilson becomes US President.

  World War I begins (August). Many thousands of Irishmen of all political persuasions join the British army as volunteers. Home Rule Act placed on statute book but implementation is suspended for the duration of the war.

  Battle of Ypres. Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity.

  Easter Rising of Nationalists in Dublin (24 April) is crushed by the British who execute its leaders, outraging Irish public opinion. Asquith resigns; Lloyd George forms a coalition government (December). Huge death tolls at the battles of Verdun and the Somme. Allies evacuate Gallipoli. Balfour Declaration: Jewish National Home in Palestine.

  Release of remaining Easter Rising detainees. Eamon de Valera becomes President of Sinn Féin, taking over from founder Arthur Griffith. Bolshevik Revolution in Russia.

  Sinn Féin leads opposition to conscription in Ireland. End of World War I (November). In general election Sinn Féin candidates win, but do not take up 73 of the 105 Irish seats in the House of Commons. Women over 30 gain the vote in Britain. Irish rebel Con Markievicz elected first British female MP.

  Sinn Féin MPs declare Irish independence; first meeting of Dáil in Dublin with De Valera as President. IVF and ICA collectively renamed the Irish Republican Army (IRA). Irish War of Independence (to 1921). Versailles Peace Conference. German Republic adopts the Weimar constitution.

  DATE AUTHOR’S LIFE LITERARY CONTEXT

  1920 Invited by Corkery to join his ‘literary reading group’; hears classical music for the first time on Corkery’s gramophone. Meets Sean O’Faolain who becomes both friend and literary sparring partner. Wharton: The Age of Innocence. Mansfield: Bliss.

  Fitzgerald: This Side of Paradise.

  1921 Takes the Republican side in the Civil War, following the example of Corkery – as he later admits. (He comes to regret this decision, and writes his book about Michael Collins as ‘an act of reparation’.) O’Neill: The Emperor Jones. Lawrence: Women in Love. Huxley: Crome Yellow. Pirandello: Six Characters in Search of an Author. Hašek: The Good Soldier Svejk (to 1923).

  1922 Actively participates in opposition to the Free State. Three original poems published in An Long (Cork Republican newspaper). Joyce: Ulysses published in Paris.

  Eliot: The Waste Land. Woolf: Jacob’s Room.z Galsworthy: The Forsyte Saga. Mansfield: The Garden Party. Sinclair Lewis: Babbitt.

  1923 ‘The Rosary’, an original poem, published in the Catholic Bulletin (March). Captured by Free State forces in February. Detained at the Women’s Prison, Cork, then transferred to Gormanstown Internment Camp (April). Here he teaches Irish to other inmates. Sean T. O’Kelly, later President of Ireland, is a fellow detainee. Released in December. Yeats awarded Nobel Prize for Literature.

  First issues of Dublin Magazine and Irish Statesman. Shaw: Saint Joan. O’Casey: The Shadow of a Gunman.

  Svevo: The Confessions of Zeno. Rilke: Duino Elegies.

  1924 Teaches Irish in St Luke’s Protestant school in Cork. Begins work as an assistant librarian in Sligo, in the northwest of Ireland. Transferred to Wicklow library after six months. O’Casey: Juno and the Paycock. Mann: The Magic Mountain.

  1925 ‘Suibhne Geilt Speaks’ (verse translation) published in Irish Statesman. First public use of the pseudonym Frank O’Connor (formed from his confirmation Shaw awarded Nobel Prize. Yeats: A Vision.

  Liam O’Flaherty: The Informer. Daniel Corkery: Hidden Ireland. Dos Passos: Manhattan Transfer.

  HISTORICAL EVENTS

  Black and Tans sent to support Irish police force. The first Bloody Sunday in Dublin. A particularly violent year in Cork with the murder by the Black and Tans of Tomas MacCurtain, the first Republican Lord Mayor, and the death on hunger strike of his replacement Terence MacSwiney. Large sections of Cork burned. Government of Ireland Act provides for Home Rule but with separate parliaments for North and South. League of Nations founded. Prohibition in US (to 1933). American women win voting rights. IRA sets fire to Dublin Customs House. First Parliament of Northern Ireland; Ulster Unionist leader Sir James Craig becomes Prime Minister (June). Truce signed between Sinn Féin and the British (July). IRA leader Michael Collins sent to London to negotiate Anglo-Irish Treaty (December). The outcome – Home Rule with dominion status for the South – dismays Republicans. First birth control clinic in Britain.

  Irish Free State officially proclaimed and a constitution adopted (January). Resignation of De Valera. Civil war breaks out between pro- and anti-treaty factions of Sinn Féin. Roman Catholic bishops issue a statement excommunicating anyone fighting on the Republican side (October). Assassination of Collins. Sectarian violence escalates in the North. Royal Ulster Constabulary formed. USSR established. Mussolini’s Fascist march on Rome. Foundation of BBC. Tomb of Tutankhamun discovered in Luxor. Revival of Ku Klux Khan in USA.

  Pro-treaty side victorious in civil war but partition continues to be opposed by the IRA. Prime Minister William Cosgrove of the Cumann na nGaedheal party embarks on programme of national reconstruction. Irish Free State joins the League of Nations. Stalin becomes General Secretary of the Communist Party. Hitler’s Munich putsch fails. German financial crisis.

  Boundary Commission fails to recommend any significant changes to the border with the North, as promised in the Anglo-Irish Treaty. Legislation prohibiting divorce in Free State passed.

  DATE AUTHOR’S LIFE LITERARY CONTEXT

  1925 cont. name, Francis, and his mother’s maide
n name). Begins to make a name for himself in Dublin literary circles. Meets A.E. (George Russell), publisher of Irish Statesman and through him W. B. Yeats and Lady Gregory. Applies for, and obtains the position of Cork’s first county librarian. Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby. Woolf: Mrs Dalloway. Kafka: The Trial.

  1926 Continues writing for Irish Statesman, as well as the Irish Tribune, contributing poems, essays and book reviews. First short story, ‘War’, published in Irish Statesman. O’Casey: The Plough and the Stars. Hemingway: The Sun Also Rises. Kipling: Debits and Credits. Kafka: The Castle.

  1927 Forms the Cork Drama League whose first play is The Round Table by Lennox Robinson. Meets Nancy McCarthy, a local chemist and amateur actress and falls in love with her. Moore: The Making of an Immortal.

  Woolf: To the Lighthouse. Cather: Death Comes for the Archbishop. Hesse: Steppenwolf.

  1928 Moves to Dublin to organize the Pembroke District Library, which is officially opened in September 1929. Among many innovations, introduces a music library and story-telling sessions for children. Stories in Irish Statesman and Dublin Magazine. Yeats: The Tower. Lawrence: Lady Chatterley’s Lover. Maugham: Ashenden. Brecht: The Threepenny Opera. Bulgakov begins The Master and Margarita (to 1940).

  1929 Two different flats in Dublin. Works in Library and writes first novel, The Saint and Mary Kate, as well as stories about the Civil War. Essays and poetry published in Irish Statesman, two stories in Dublin Magazine. Shaw: The Apple Cart. Denis Johnston: The Old Lady Says ‘No!’.

  Bowen: The Last September. Woolf: A Room of One’s Own. Faulkner: The Sound and the Furry. Hemingway: A Farewell to Arms. Hammet: Red Harvest.

  1930 War stories published in Irish Statesman and Dublin Magazine, later in his first book of collected stories, Guests of the Nation. Irish Statesman ceases publication because of a libel action. Seven articles and reviews in last issue as well as poetry and one war story. Faulkner: As I Lay Dying. Hammett: The Maltese Falcon. Freud: Civilization and its Discontents.

  HISTORICAL EVENTS

  Radio Eireann set up. Anti-treaty faction of Sinn Féin splits; De Valera forms Fianna Fáil party. Germany admitted to League of Nations. General Strike in Britain. Baird demonstrates television picture.

  Assassination of Kevin O’Higgins, Minister for Justice, by militant Republicans. De Valera’s Fianna Fáil take up their seats, ending boycott of the Dáil. Lindbergh flies the Atlantic solo. First ‘talkie’ – The Jazz Singer.

  First ‘Five Year Plan’ in USSR. Full suffrage for women in UK. Amelia Earheart becomes the first woman to fly the Atlantic solo. First Mickey Mouse cartoon. Fleming discovers penicillin. Foundation of the Gate Theatre, Dublin.

  Passage of the Censorship of Publications Act by the Irish government. Under this law a number of O’Connor’s books – and those of many other authors – were banned. Completion of the Shannon Scheme to supply the South with hydro-electric power. Abolition of proportional representation in the North. Wall Street Crash. Period of worldwide Depression begins.

  Mahatma Gandhi begins civil disobedience movement in India.

  DATE AUTHOR’S LIFE LITERARY CONTEXT

  1931 Moves to Anglesea Road, near library. Receives $140 from US magazine Atlantic Monthly for the story ‘Guests of the Nation’. The book Guests of the Nation published by Macmillan, London and New York. Johnston: The Moon in the Yellow River.

  Hammett: The Glass Key. Woolf: The Waves. Maugham: Six Stories in the First Person Singular.

  1932 Moves again to Trenton, Ballsbridge. Story in Yale Review. The Wild Bird’s Nest (translations of old Irish poetry) published by Cuala Press, Dublin. The Saint and Mary Kate (novel) published by Macmillan, London and New York. Engaged to Nancy McCarthy. Sean O’Faolain: Midsummer Night Madness. Faulkner: Light in August. Huxley: Brave New World. Musil: The Man Without Qualities.

  1933 Raglan Road, Ballsbridge. Guests of the Nation reprinted. Starts interviewing friends and family of Michael Collins with a view to writing a biography. Amateur group makes film of Guests of the Nation. Yeats: The Winding Stair; Collected Poems. Johnston: A Bride for the Unicorn.

  Hemingway: Winner Take Nothing. N. West: Miss Lonelyhearts. Stein: The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas.

  1934 A.E. sells house and moves to London. First autobiographical piece, ‘A Boy in Prison’, published in Life and Letters. Heartbroken when Nancy McCarthy breaks off engagement. Bowen: The Cat Jumps. Beckett: More Pricks Than Kicks.

  Sean O’Faolain: A Nest of Simple Folk.

  Fitzgerald: Tender is the Night. H. Miller: Tropic of Cancer.

  1935 Appointed to board of directors of the Abbey Theatre. Story ‘First Confession’ (under the title ‘Repentance’) published in Lovat Dickson’s Magazine. Waugh: A Handful of Dust. Steinbeck: Tortilla Flat. Lewis: It Can’t Happen Here.

  1936 Three Old Brothers (original poems) published by Nelson, London. Bones of Contention (stories) published by Macmillan, New York. First broadcast on BBC. Sean O’Faolain: Bird Alone. Faulkner: Absalom, Absalom! Auden: Look Stranger! Garcia Lorca: The House of Bernardo Alba.

  HISTORICAL EVENTS

  Statute of Westminster establishes legal status of dominions of British Commonwealth.

  Fianna Fáil wins general election; De Valera forms government. Protectionist economic policies adopted. During the 1930s a number of semi-state companies are set up (e.g. Turf Development Board, Irish Sugar Company, Irish Life). Annuities payable to Irish farmers for land purchase are diverted from British to Irish Exchequer, provoking trade war with Britain. Unemployment in Britain reaches 2,947,000; Hunger Marches. Election of Roosevelt in US. Nazis become largest party in German Reichstag.

  De Valera re-elected with increased majority. Abolition of oath of allegiance and reduction of powers of British governor-general. Fine Gael founded. Unemployment Assistance Act. Foundation of Falange (Fascist party) in Spain. Roosevelt announces New Deal. Hitler becomes German Chancellor.

  Hitler becomes German Führer.

  De Valera severs ties with the IRA, imprisoning some of its leaders. Sale and importation of contraceptives made illegal in the Free State. In Germany Nuremberg laws deprive Jews of citizenship.

  IRA declared illegal. First Aer Lingus flight. Outbreak of Spanish Civil War (to 1939). Edward VIII abdicates; George VI crowned in UK. Stalin’s ‘Great Purge’ of the Communist Party (to 1938).

  DATE AUTHOR’S LIFE LITERARY CONTEXT

  1937 Appointed managing director of Abbey Theatre. The Big Fellow: A Life of Michael Collins published by Nelson, London. In the Train and The Invincibles (plays), in collaboration with Hugh Hunt, for the Abbey Theatre. Ó Criomhthain: The Islandman.

  Auden/MacNeice: Letters from Iceland.

  M. J. Farrell: The Rising Tide. Steinbeck: Of Mice and Men. Hemingway: To Have and Have Not.

  Orwell: The Road to Wigan Pier.

  1938 Moses’ Rock (play), in collaboration with Hugh Hunt, for the Abbey Theatre. Lords and Commons (translations from Irish) published by Cuala Press, Dublin. Ceases to work as a librarian in order to devote time to writing. Beckett: Murphy. Bowen: The Death of the Heart. Brian Coffey: Third Person. Dos Passos: USA. Greene: Brighton Rock. Waugh: Scoop.

  Pritchett: You Make Your Own Life.

  Sartre: Nausea.

  1939 Marries Evelyn Bowen Speaight, an English actress. They move to a rented house in Woodenbridge, County Wicklow. Steps down from the Abbey Theatre board after the death of Yeats. Birth of first child, Myles. First broadcasts on Radio Eireann. Yeats: Last Poems; Two Plays. Joyce: Finnegans Wake. O’Brien: At Swim-Two-Birds. Death of Yeats. Steinbeck: The Grapes of Wrath. H. Miller: Tropic of Capricorn. Chandler: The Big Sleep. Isherwood: Goodbye to Berlin.

  1940 Together with Sean O’Faolain, helps establish The Bell, a new Irish literary journal. Dutch Interior (novel) published by Macmillan, London, and Knopf, New York. Sean O’Faolain: Come Back to Erin.

  O’Brien: The Third Policeman (unpublished until 1967). Hemingway: For Whom the Bell Tolls. />
  Chandler: Farewell, My Lovely. Greene: The Power and the Glory.

  Dylan Thomas: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog.

  1941 Dutch Interior banned by Irish Censorship Board for ‘indecency’. Birth of daughter Liadain. Broadcast from London for BBC Home Service. O’Brien: An Béal Bocht (The Poor Mouth). Death of Joyce. Fitzgerald: The Last Tycoon. Coward: Blythe Spirit. Brecht: Mother Courage.

  HISTORICAL EVENTS

  New constitution adopted which ignores the British Crown, claiming sovereignty over ‘the whole island of Ireland’ but ‘pending reintegration’ only applying to 26 counties. The nation is to be known as Eire. De Valera becomes Taoiseach (Prime Minister). Bombing of Guernica by German planes. Hitler and Mussolini form Rome—Berlin Axis. Japanese invasion of China.

  Douglas Hyde is elected as the first President. Irish government agrees to pay lump sum to Britain to clear annuities debt. British agree to withdraw from naval bases in Eire. End of trade war. Germany annexes Austria. Munich crisis.

  Germany occupies Czechoslovakia. Nazi-Soviet Pact; Hitler invades Poland. Ireland declares its neutrality in World War II (though thousands of Irish citizens enlist to fight for Britain). A ‘State of Emergency’ declared.

  IRA leadership attempts to open links with Nazi Germany. Resignation of Neville Chamberlain: Winston Churchill leads coalition ministry in Britain. Fall of France. Battle of Britain. The Blitz.

  Heavy German air-raids on Belfast and Derry: fire brigades from Eire are sent to assist victims. Bombs dropped on Dublin in error by German bombers (31 May), killing 334 and injuring 90. Germany invades Russia. Japan attacks Pearl Harbor; US enters war. Hitler invades the Soviet Union.

  DATE AUTHOR’S LIFE LITERARY CONTEXT

  1942 Death of his father in Cork. Works for four weeks at the British Ministry of Information and the BBC in London (January). The Statue’s Daughter (play) staged at the Gate Theatre, Dublin. Three Tales (stories) published by Cuala Press, Dublin. Moves to Sandymount, County Dublin (to 1949). The Irish government, being neutral, worries that the Germans might misinterpret his frequent visits to England, so cancels his passport and bans him from leaving Ireland. O’Casey: Red Rose for Me. Patrick Kavanagh: The Great Hunger. Camus: The Outsider.