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Life
1933- ; son of Padraic Fallon and Dorothea (née Maher), dg. of Dublin builder; introduced to The Irish Times at 19 through his father’s friendship with the editor R. M. Smyllie; enrolled as Classics student, TCD, sub-editing at night; left TCD after two years; m. journalist Marion Fitzgerald; art critic and Chief Critic of The Irish Times; chief author for Gandon series on Irish artists; appt. Chairman of the Arts Council, 1996 [cf. Banville]; his brothers are Garry, Brian, Conor (a sculptor), Padraic, Ivan (Financial Times, exec.), and Niall;
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Works
Monographs, Edward McGuire (Dublin: Irish Academic Press 1991), 143pp.; Irish Art 1830-1990 (Belfast: Appletree Press 1994); Charles Tyrrell (Dublin: Gandon 1994); Martin Gale (Dublin: Gandon 1995) [No. 19]; Sean McSweeney (Dublin: Gandon 1996); An Age of Innocence (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan 1998).
Miscellaneous, contrib. essay to Henry Flanagan, OP: Preacher in Stone (Dublin: Riverbank Arts Centre 2003). See also a very large number of articles in the Irish Times espec. during his period of tenure as Senior Art.
Bibliographical details
An Age of Innocence (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan 1998). CONTENTS, Chapter 1: In Perspective [1]; Chapter 2: Begging the Question [19]; Chapter 3: A Disinherited Culture [27]; Chapter 4: Yeats Centre Stage [39]; Chapter 5: Joyce and the Exile Tradition [59]; Chapter 6: Founding Fathers [73]; Chapter 7: Second Generation [95]; Chapter 8: The Poets after Yeats [107]; Chapter 9: The French Connection [123]; Chapter 10: The Theatre [133]; Chapter 11: The Literary Pubs [149]; Chapter 12: The Irish Language [159]; Chapter 13: Gaels and Anglo-Irish [173]; Chapter 14: The Church [183]; Chapter 15: The Literary Censorship [201]; Chapter 16: Neutrality and de Valera [211]; Chapter 17: Press and Periodicals [225]; Chapter 18: The Visual Arts [237]; Chapter 19: Musical Life and Lives [247]; Chapter 20: The Fifties [257 ]. References 273]; Bibliography 285]; Index [295].
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Quotations
An Age of Innocence: Irish Culture 1930-1960 (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan 1998): ‘Though it is often depicted as a time almost entirely dominated by ruralism and back-to-the-land philosophies, many people - including young women - were deserting the countrysIde and the small farms; and while peasant values were paid lip service by politicians and others, in practice the Irish were already on the way to becoming what Seán O’Faolain has called “a nation of urbanised peasants”. [...] Seen in this context, it becomes plain that it was not an era of regression, but rather of deep social and cultural change which led - sometimes by odd or circuitous routes - to the Irish society of today. Today we tend to see those thirty years in a kind of levelling monochrome, though Ireland was actually in constant flux and many crucial intellectual debates were fought out which have largely made us what we are today, for better or worse - or for neither. The newborn Ireland was [1] grappling, sometimes hesitantly and sometimes ineptly, with its role or place in the modern era. Yet for a long time now the tendency has been to see it as dominated by insularity, defensive-minded nationalism, the Church, censorship, a retreat from the outer world. This attitude has fossilised into a kind of dogma, which a surprising number of people – including some well-informed ones – refuse to criticise or reconsider.’ (pp.1-2.)
Fears: ‘You ask me do I fear for literacy. I fear for literacy’; ‘Journalism … encourages a certain terseness, which is a good thing’; ‘there is an urgent need for a serious arts journal. The Arts Council should step in.’ (Eileen Battersby, ‘A Self-made Critic’, in The Irish Times, 5 Nov. 1998, p.15.)
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Notes
After Independence, the National University became the alma mater of most of the new writers and intelligentsia … The great exception was Samuel Beckett … In the Sixties, when Trinity seemd harldy to matter any longer as a “literary” university, a vital new generation emerged […]. (‘Laureates, divines, Francophiles, and poor MacFlecknoes, “Trinity Weekend”, in Irish Times, 9 May 1992, p.8; cited in Edna Longley, The Living Stream: Literature and Revisionism in Ireland, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne: Bloodaxe 1994, p.17-18.
Kith & Kin: the sculptor Conor Fallon (1939-2007) is a brother - married to Nancy Wynn-Jones (d.2006).
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