Donn Byrne

Life

1889-1928; b. 20 Nov., New York, d. Cork; raised South Antrim glens [Co. Antrim]; ed. America from age 11, and afterwards at UCD, Leipzig and Paris; moved to America 1911; his wrote a series of chiefly romantic novels incl. Stranger’s Banquet (1919): Foolish Matrons (1920), filmed in 1921; The Changling and Other Stories (1923) ; Blind Raftery (1924) ; O’Malley of Shanganagh (1925); Hangman’s House (1925), and Power of the Dog (1929); his novel Destiny Bay (1928) which was made into the first British technicolour feature film as Wings of the Morning (1937); also The Golden Goat (1930);
 
issued Brother Saul (1925), and Messer Marco Polo (1922), trans. into Irish by Seán Mac Maoláin (1930); wrote much short fiction, mainly for New York magazines; The Rock Whence I was Hewn (1929) gives an autobiographical view of Ireland; d. in car accident at Courtmacsherry Bay, Co. Cork, 18 June, shortly after acquiring Coolmain Castle as a home; rep. edition of his works was in progress at the time of his death and proceeded after; he named a son St. John. DIW DIL KUN DUB OCIL

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Works
Fiction
  • Stories Without Women (NY: Heart’s International Library 1915).
  • The Stranger’s Banquet (NY: Harper’s 1919).
  • The Foolish Matrons (NY: Harper’s 1920; London: Sampson Low 1923).
  • Messer Marco Polo (NY: The Century Co. 1921; London: Sampson Low 1922).
  • The Wind Bloweth (NY: The Century Co.; London: Sampson Low 1922).
  • Changling and Other Stories (NY: The Century Co. 1923; London: Sampson Low 1924).
  • Blind Raftery and his Wife Hilaria (NY: The Century Co. 1924; London: Sampson Low 1925) [see full-text copy as .htm; also as .pdf in this frame or separate page].
  • O’Malley of Shanganagh (NY: The Century Co. 1925), published in Britain as An Untitled Story (London: Sampson Low 1925).
  • Hangman’s House (NY: The Century Co. 1925; London: Sampson Low 1925).
  • Brother Saul (NY: Century; London: Sampson Low 1927).
  • Crusade (Boston: Little, Brown; London: Sampson Low 1928) [stories].
  • The Power of the Dog (London: Sampson Low 1929), published in USA as Field of Honor (NY: Century 1929).
  • The Golden Goat (London: Sampson Low 1930), 156pp. [2nd imp.]
Travel
  • Ireland, The Rock Whence I Was Hewn (Boston: Little, Brown; London: Sampson Low 1929), travel.

[ See full-text copy of Blind Raftery and his Wife Hilaria (NY: Century 1924; London: Sampson Low 1925) - in this frame, or on a separate page. ]

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Criticism
Thurston Macauley, Donn Byrne, Bard of Armagh (NY & London: Century 1930); Winthrop Wetherbee, Donn Byrne: A Bibliography (NY: Public Library 1949). See also Irish Book Lover, Vols. 16, 17.


Quotations
Hangman's House (1925) - Opening: ‘Once more had come now the miracle of the Irish June. Yellow of gorse; red of clover; purple of the Dublin Mountains. Everywhere the white of the hawthorn; there would be a hard winter coming, the gloomy farmers said, so much of it there was. And wherever a clump of trees were, there grew great crops of bluebells. And the primrose lingered, who should have gone three weeks and more. And over the white roads the trees met, elm and ash and sturdy horse-chestnut, making cool green tunnels, like some property out of a fairy story. And where there were dock-leaves by the roadside the golden snail crept, with his long sensitive eyes, his little house on his back-sheleg-a-bookie, the Irish children call him affectionately, snail of the hump-the golden snail with his mottled house, who leaves a band of silver on the green leaf.’ (Quoted in Amazon Books - online; accessed 26.11.2021.)

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References
Kevin Rockett, et al., eds., Cinema & Ireland (1988), cites Hangman’s House (1928), dir. John Ford and made in Ireland; further, Destiny Bay was adapted by Tom Geraghty, John Meehan, and Brinsley MacNamara as script for Wings of the Morning (Harold Schuster 1937), being Britain’s first Technicolor feature; it concerns marriage of Irish nobleman to à gipsy in 1889, and romance among his descendants; score sung by John McCormack. Note also, Dorothea Donn Byrne’s story Irish and Proud of It was filmed in 1936; also Land of Her Fathers, directed by John Hurley in 1925.

Anthony Slide, Cinema in Ireland (1988), remarks that because of its director (John Ford), its star (Janet Gaynor) and its source (Donn Byrne), Hangman’s House, released by William Fox in the spring of 1928, remains one of the most important “Irish” films in the United States in the 1920s; ‘it did not burlesque the Irish ... did not oversentimentalise ... handled the subject with restraint [and] created a believable atmosphere [in] a melodrama without melodramatics (p.108). The actors in Hangman’s House are here listed as June Collyer, Larry Kent, Victor McLaglen, and Hobart Bosworth, with a plate of the first-named three (p.65, 67). Donn-Byrne called himself ‘the last traditional Irish novelist’; he despised the United States and the Sinn Feiners and was ‘a staunch Orangeman’ who wrote of revolution as ‘a gallant, chivalrous adventurer in our foolish, romantic hears’ (foreword to Hangman’s House). Slide writes, ‘it is little wonder that he was branded synthetic and a professional Irishman’. Some nine feature films are based on [his] novels and stories, Dangerous Hours (1919), The Bride’s Play (1921), Foolish Matrons (1921) The Woman God Changed (1921); The Stranger’s Banquet (1922); Blarney (1926); Hangman’s House (1928); His Captive Woman (1929), and Wings of the Morning (1937).

Booksellers
Hyland Books (Cat. 260, 2011), lists Blind Raftery and His Wife Hilaria” [1st edn.] (London) [cover marked, text good: €20]; The Wind Bloweth [1st edn.] (NY George Bellow 1922), ill. [v.g.: €27]; O’Malley of Shanganagh [1st edn. (NY: John R. Flanagan 1925), ills. [v.g.: €25]; “Hangman’s House” [1st edn.} (NY John R. Flanagan 1926), ills. [good: €22]; "Ireland, The Rock Whence I Was Hewn (1929), ills., map. [v.g.: €23]; Crusade [1st public edn.]; (Boston 1929), [d/w., v.g.: €28]; Crusade [1st public edn. (Boston 1929) [v.g.: €23].

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