Liam O’Flaherty: A Chronology

  • Liam Ó Fleahairtaigh; Gort na gCapall, Inishmore, Aran, born to a family prominent in Land League.
  • Educ. at National School (to 12), under tutelage of David O’Callaghan, a model for the title-character in Skerrett.
  • Chosen for the priesthood and ed. Rockwell College, Tipperary (on a clerical scholarship), also Clonliffe College, Drumcondra.
  • Moved to Blackrock College at 17.
  • Established Irish Volunteers unit at Blackrock, 1913.
  • Abandoned preparations for priesthood and proceeded to UCD on Classics scholarship, 1913.
  • Enlisted in Irish Guards under name of ‘Ganley’, 1915.
  • Wounded during bombardment at Langemarck and discharged with disability pension, 1917.
  • Supported the IRA in the War of Independence.
  • Travelled in S. American and N. America, 1918-1921.
  • Founder-member of Irish Communist Party, Nov. 1921.
  • Seized the Rotunda Rooms, Dublin, 18 Jan. 1922, proclaiming an Irish Soviet Workers’ Republic.
  • Surrendered to Provisional Government, 22 Nov.
  • Supported Rory O’Connor at the Four Courts, escaping before the surrender.
  • Moved London and commenced writing, Sept. 1922; first MS rejected.
  • Issued Thy Neighbour’s Wife (1923).
  • Met Edward Garnett of Jonathan Cape following submission ‘The Sniper’ to New Leader (ed. Mrs. Hamilton).
  • Encouraged to read Turgenev’s, George Borrow and Joseph Conrad as well as Maupassant and Chekhov.
  • Returned to Dublin, 1924.
  • Issued Spring Sowing (1924), highly acclaimed stories; The Black Soul (1924), Conradian novel; The Informer (1925), selling 200,000 copies (James Tait Memorial Prize) and later filmed by John Ford (1935); Dorchadas, play in Irish, performed Dublin 1926; Mr Gilhooley (1926).
  • Eloped with Margaret Barrington, wife of Edmund Curtis, 1926 (and separated soon after).
  • Protested at Sean O’Casey’s The Plough and the Stars, 8 Feb., 1926 .
  • Won contract for life of Tim Healy on the grounds that each had made themselves the ‘most unpopular [men] in Ireland’.
  • Issued The Assassin (1928); The Return of the Brute (1929); Tourist’s Guide to Ireland (1929) - ‘priests, peasants, publicans’.
  • Founding member of MIAL on Yeats’s invitation, 1929.
  • Visited Russia, Spring-Summer 1930.
  • Travel to America, [Autumn] 1930-45, living vchiefly in California.
  • Met Kitty Tailer (‘Kitty Pie’) at Santa Barbara, California, 1935.
  • Issued Two Years (1930); I Went to Russia (1931); The Ecstasy of Angus (1931); The Puritan (1932); The Martyr (1933); also Shame the Devil (1934), autobiography; Hollywood Cemetery (1935); Skerrett (1935); Famine (1937), ded. to John Ford.
  • Supported socialist wing of IRA and Spanish Republicans.
  • Gave lecture, ‘Hands Off Ireland’, Town Hall, NY, 1941.
  • Returned to Ireland, 1945, settling with Kitty in flat nr. Baggott St., Dublin.
  • Issued Land (1946); Insurrection (1950), Dúil (1953).
  • Commenced work on unfinished novel about gambling; became increasing reclusive.
  • Hon D.Litt. National University of Ireland.
  • d. 7 September 1984; 100th anniversary of his birth celebrated on Inis Mór, August 1996.

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ENG507C2 - University of Ulster - 2004