Life
?- 1935 [Mrs J. M. Callwell]; member of the Martins of Ross, Galway; contrib. Blackwood’s Magazine; author of Timothy Tatters (1892), in which the young Rose Moore leads a ‘Land League’ with the
other children and the neighbouring boy Patsey to to frighten the English captain who is about to marry their mother - a plot finally resolved by
his kindness after Patsey has been tried for firing a gun at him; also A Little Irish Girl (1908); d. Ballycastle. IF2
[ top ]
Works
One Summer by the Sea (London: Thomas Nelson 1903), 333pp.; Timothy
Tatters: A Story for the Young Nelson (London: Thomas Nelson 1890); 192pp. A Little Irish Girl (1908); Old Irish Life (1912).
[ top ]
Quotations
Timothy Tatters: A Story for the Young Nelson (London: Thomas Nelson 1892.) 192pp., with col. pls.; boys’ book; contains two chaps on The Land League [viz., chaps. IX and X: ‘The Land League goes into action’, and ‘The Land League comes out - rather ignominiously’]. Patsy Molloy, a runaway waif from Liverpool, returns to Ireland and is taken in at Castlefogarty (‘not a proper castle at all’, p.30), abode of a kindly Anglo-Irish family of the Moores, incl. the children Ulick, and high-spirited Rose; a London engagement with Mrs. Moore, mother of the children, brings Capt. [Edw.] Hammond to the the house (‘Unhappily Captain Hammond did not in any way remove the unfavourable impression his appearance had created’, p.59.) He becomes the object of a jug-of-water prank; he puts lock and bolts on the house in times of ‘dastardly outrage’; ‘it seemd derogatory to the dignity of a household descended from the old Irish chiefs that this custom [of not locking] should be altered’ (p.91.) In the course of a jape on Hammond, it materialises that young Patsy is the Land League: ‘[...] the Land League of Castlefogarty went to bed’ p.102; visit to Phoulaphouca sets the novel in Co. Wicklow (p.115.) Childhood members of the Castlefogarty (Patsy, and Johnny) Land League load pistols to shoot Hammond just as he is saying to his companion, ‘Of course there is a good deal to startle an Englishman’s prejudices at first ... but when one comes to know the country better ...’ (p.134f.) Patsy is captured, brought before magistrates and jailed at Gowran. By now the English captain turns out to have ‘a good heart’ (p.154.) Rose bears witness at Patsy’s trial (p.162.) Crown solicitor: ‘The wretched boy in the dock had doubtless been a tool in the hands of others older and more depraved than himself ...’ (p.168.) Patsy sentenced to a month in prison and five years in reformatory; Patsy has ‘held his tongue’ and says “ ‘twas for Miss Rose” [implying that she is the true culprit] (p.177.) Rose comes clean with Capt. Hammond, and Patsy is released: ‘I didn’t mean it was harm to be an Englishman ... but we don’t like English people over here. Don’t you see how different that makes you to us all? You don’t like the things that we like ... You odn’t even talk the same way, and it makes us all seem horrid and wrong, somehow.’ (p.182.) Capt. Hammond is by now ‘not unkindly’ (p.183.) ‘you can teach me to be as Irish as you can, and I will do my best to make you like English ways as well as Irish ones’ (p.184)’; undertakes to train Patsy indoors as a ‘buttons’; ‘he’s a fine little chap, and he will do well, I have no doubt in whatever walk in life he chooses’ (p.189.) to Rose: ‘well ... if it was the land league that made peace between us, we owe it a debt of gratitude.’ (p.192).
[ top ]
References
Stephen Brown, Ireland in Fiction: A Guide to Irish Novels, Tales, Romances and Folklore [Pt. I] (Dublin: Maunsel 1919), lists A Little Irish Girl (1908), being the doings and adventures of a lot of very natural and human children, particularly the bright and wild little heroine, and Manus, a typical English-reared schoolboy; peasants seen in relation to better class ... no moralising. Ill. Harold Copping. Further, Desmond Clarke, Ireland in Fiction [Vol. 2 of same] (1985), lists Timothy Tatters (London: Nelson 1890 [sic]), 192pp.
Eggeling Catalogue (No. 44) lists One Summer by the Sea (Nelson 1903), 333pp,; Timothy Tatters, A Story for the Young Nelson (1892).
Belfast Central Library holds A Little Irish Girl (1908) and, Old Irish Life (1912).
[ top ]