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Life
[Lady Carbery;] b. St. Albans, Herts., dg. of J. Toulmin, JP; m. Algernon, 9th Baron Carbery, Castlefreke, Co. Cork; read widely in ancient and modern Irish literature; learned Irish; her husband died of TB, 1898; remarried Kit Sandford, a medical specialist in Cork, 1901 or 1902; Castle Freke burned by accident, 1910; rebuilt, 1913, and sold by her eldest son, John, 1919; travelled in Europe with her husband.
issued The Germans in Cork, satire, and The Light in the Window, both published anon.; Children of the Dawn (1923); The Farm by Lough Gur (1937; rep. 1986), composed from reminiscences of Mary Fogarty (b.1858) [var. Sissy O’Brien]; later settled at Harpenden, Herts., with her son Christopher Sandford who founded the Golden Cockerel Press; her ‘Diaries 1898-1901’ issued by his son Jeremy (1995). IF2
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Works
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Commentary
Hugh Oram, review, in Books Ireland (Summer 1999), gives similar account and biographical details as above, but describes The Farm by Lough Gur as her second book, with the implication that the Diary appeared first.
Note also brief reference in P. J. Kavanagh, Voices in Ireland (John Murray 1994), p.137.
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References
Desmond Clarke, Ireland in Fiction [Pt. II] (Cork: Royal Carbery 1985), lists Children of the Dawn (London: Heinemann 1923), 316pp.; ostensibly set in Druid times; set in Rosscarbery; Shamus, chief druid, wins people from barbarism and superstition and leads them to the way of loveliness’; banished by druid council at Tara; returns in triumph after 14 years; intended as allegory of modern Catholic Ireland with various sorts of clergy represented under allegory of ‘Dé Danaan’ Ireland.
Library of Herbert Bell, Belfast holds Happy World (London 1941).
Hyland Books (Cat. 260, 2011) lists The Farm by Lough Gur (The Story of Mary Fogarty) [1st edn.] (1937), intro. by Shane Leslie; ill. [decorations] by Elizabeth Corsellis decorations (d/w, dull: text good: €40.
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Notes
Mary Carbery’s West Cork Journals, ed. & intro. by Jeremy Sandford (Lilliput 1995); listed in Lilliput Cat. (1995); cites Mary, ‘If Queen Victoria can learn Hindustan then I can learn Irish’; mistress of neo-medieval Freke Castle (ill.) after early death of her husband, ninth lord of Carbery; from author of The Farm by Lough Gur (1937); chronicles decline of Anglo-Irish ascendancy, but concentrates on life of poor people and tenants, folktales, &c.; Sandford, a gs., is the author of Cathy Come Home (1966) and other screenplays.
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