Richard Hayward (1892-1964)

Life
[var. b. 1894; Richard N. Hayward]; b. Southport in Lancashire; ed. Larne Grammar School, Co. Antrim; witnessed launch of the Titanic, 1913; wrote curtain raisers for Ulster Players; acted in numerous films; with Tyrone Guthrie, fnd. Belfast Repertory Theatre; President of PEN and Naturalist Field Club; issued plays and novels in Ulster dialect; worked as a popular singer in the 1940s and 1950s and recorded Irish folksongs on more than a hundred disks; sang at RTÉ with Delia Murphy; occasionally worked as Fox’s Glacier Mints and a chocolate sweet company;

Hayward wrote a travel series under the general title of This is Ireland - viz., Leinster and the City of Dublin (1949), Connacht (1952), Mayo, Sligo, Leitrim and Roscommon (1955), and Munster and Cork City (London 1964) - along with other Irish topographical works such as Where the River Shannon Flows (1940) and Belfast Through the Ages (1952); he also wrote The Story of the Irish Harp (1954), a pamphlet, for Guinness [Dublin];

issued early poetry collections, Love Poems (1920), and Ulster Songs and Ballads (1925) and a also a novel, Sugar House Entry (1936); his 1924 broadcast on “Love in Ulster” was heard by John Hewitt; he died as a result of a car accident outside Ballymena, 13 Sept. [var. Oct.] 1964; Hayward was a member of the Orange Order; a biography by Paul Clements (Romancing Ireland, 2014) draws on notebooks, papers and unpublished letters. DIL DIW IF DUB

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Works
Topography
  • In Praise of Ulster (London: Barker 1938; 4th rev. ed., Belfast: William Mullan 1945), viii+371pp., with 48 drawings by J. Humbert Craig.
  • Where the River Shannon Flows (London: Harrap 1940).
  • The Corrib Country (Dundalk: Dundalgan Press [W. Tempest] 1943; 2nd edn. 1947), 164pp., with ills. from drawings in wash by J. Humbert Craig, RHA, and foreword by Maurice Walsh.
  • In the Kingdom of Kerry (Dundalk: W. Tempest 1946), 350pp., ill. Theo. J. Gracey, and ded. Maurice J. Walsh, ‘the father of this book’.
  • This is Ireland [4 part series, illustrated], 1949-64; [This is Ireland:] Leinster and the City of Dublin (London: Barker 1949), 256pp., ill. Raymond Piper.
  • This is Ireland: Connacht and the City of Galway (London: George Barker 1952).
  • This is Ireland: Mayo, Sligo, Leitrim, Roscommon (London: George Barker 1953) [ill. Raymond Piper].
  • Munster and the City of Cork (London: Phoenix House 1964), 354pp. [pencil drawings by Raymond Piper].
  • Belfast Through the Ages (Dundalgan: [W. Tempest] 1952).
  • The Story of the Irish Harp (Dublin: A[rthur] Guinness 1954), pamph.
  • Border Foray (London: George Barker 1957), 190pp.
Fiction
  • Sugar House Entry: A Novel of the Ulster Countryside (London: Arthur Barker 1936).
Miscellaneous
  • ‘A Night to Remember’, in Ulster Illustrated (April 1958) [q.pp.; presumably on the Titanic disaster and the film of that name].
Filmography (appeared in)
  • Flame in the Heather (1935).
  • The Early Bird (1936).
  • Irish and Proud of It (1936).
  • The Luck of the Irish (1936).
  • Devil’s Rock (1938).
  • A Night to Remember (1958) [on the Titanic].

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Criticism
G. B. Adam, ‘Richard Hayward: A Bibliography of his Published Works’, in Irish Booklore, 3, i (1976), p. 50ff.; Paul Clements, Romancing Ireland: Richard Hayward, 1892–1964 (Dublin: Lilliput Press 2014), 320pp. [standard work].

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References
Stephen Brown, Ireland in Fiction [Pt. I] (Dublin: Maunsel 1919), lists Suger House Entry (London: Barker 1936) [set between the wars on the eponymous Co. Down farm; Johnny Montgomery, farmhand, attempts to woo Rosie, who has her eye on Robert Dunseith, farm-owner, who is fond of Johnny’s sister, working for him; Presbyterian folk and dialect.]

Kate Newmann, Dictionary of Ulster Biography (Belfast: QUB/IIS 1993), cites Belfast as his birthplace, and reports that he began his career there as a dramatist.

Robert Hogan, ed., Dictionary of Irish Literature (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan 1979), notes ‘obstrusive Ulster jocularity’ in his travel writings and compares them unfavourably with Padraic Colum, The Road Round Ireland, and Harold Speakman’s here’s Ireland, or even Thackeray’s Sketch Book.

Libraries & Booksellers

Ulster Libraries: BELFAST PUBLIC LIBRARY lists for Hayward, R., This is Ireland, Leinster (1949) ... Connacht (1952); In Praise of Ulster (Belfast 1938) [large octavo; 48 ills, by J Humbert Craig]; Belfast through the Ages (1952), Where the River Shannon Flows (1950) and other topographical and guidebook works. LIBRARY OF HERBERT BELL (Belfast) holds In Praise of Ulster (Belfast 1938); Where the River Shannon Flows (Dundalk 1940); Leinster and the City of Dublin (London 1949); Ulster and the City of Belfast (London In The Kingdom of Kerry (Dundalk 1950); Munster and the City of Cork (London 1964). ULSTER UNIVERSITY LIBRARY (Morris Collection) holds This is Ireland, Ulster and the City of Belfast (1950). LINENHALL LIBRARY lists under H. R. Hayward, Love in Ulster and other Poems (1920); Poems (1920), and Ulster Songs and Ballads (1925).

Booksellers: CATHACH BOOKS (Cat. No. 12) lists Munster and Cork City (London 1964) [pencil drawings by Raymond Piper]; Where the River Shannon Flows (n.d.); Border Foray ([1957]); This is Ireland, Mayo, Sligo, Leitrim, Roscommon (London 1955) [ill. Raymond Piper]; The Corrib Country [2nd ed.] (Dundalk 1947) [ill. J. Humbert Craig]; This is Ireland, Connaught and the City of Galway (London 1952). HYLAND BOOKS (Oct. 1995) lists Leinster & the City of Dublin (1st edn. 1949); Border Foray (1st edn. 1957).

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Notes
Poetry unseen: G. B. Adam, ‘Richard Hayward, a bibliography of his published works’, in Irish Booklore, 3, I (1976), p.50ff., makes reference to an opera called Deirdre named on the title page of The Jew’s Fiddle (1921) and Love in Ulster and Other Poems (1922), but itself unseen by the bibliographer.

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