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Life
1911-1983; b. Cork; dg. John Allen Fitzgerald Gregg, Archbishop of Dublin, 1920, and Primate of Ireland, 1939-59; ed. London and Alexandra College; TCD, Mod. Langs., Hons. (French & English, 1931; m. Michael Fitzgerald Somerville and settled in lived in West Africa afterwards; issued We Are Besieged (1946), winner of Book Society Recommendation; also Footprint on Water (1983), both novels. IF2 ATT OCIL
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Criticism
See Ruth Frehner, The Colonizers' Daughters: Gender in The Anglo-Irish Big House Novel (Tubingen: Franacke 1999), x, 256pp. [studies of novels by George Moore, Elizabeth Bowen, Barbara Fitzgerald, Aidan Higgins, Somerville & Ross, Molly Keane, John Banville, Jennifer Johnston].
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References
Desmond Clarke, ed,. Ireland in Fiction [Pt II] (Shandon: Royal Carbery Books 1985), lists We Are Besieged (London: Peter Davies 1946), 320pp. [burning out of Anglo-Irishman Cpt. Archie Butler, and dilemma of his class after Independence; finding one’s one level among the Irish without the aid of vice-regal balls].
Blackstaff Catalogue (1994), citing review from Books Ireland, calls Footprint on Water (Belfast 1983) an elegant novel set in Co. Cork and tracing the decline of the Fellowes family after the death of a spendthrift father; further, five sisters [in] impending poverty; uneasy relationship of Katharine, eldest sister with Susan, formidable but ultimately pathetic puritan, with her orphaned niece; includes portrayal of peasant Nanny with authentic vernacular; final episode in which Katharine’s authority is challenged; and estranged Susan’s return to deserted family home.
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