February 22nd, 2007
Irish Women Writers and omissions
This post is for Omani (and his daughter Grace), who in the comments of this post brought up the mysterious absence of women writers from a very famous Irish poster. The version reproduced here is a slightly redesigned one, but it’s essentially the same as the one that used to hang in my English classroom. I use the word “redesign” rather than “update”, because the folks behind it have still not bothered to add any women to it. Years after it first appeared, no one has considered that an update might be used as an opportunity to make it less of the boy’s club than it appears. Maybe it never claimed to be a definitive list or ‘Best Irish Writers’, but even back then I noticed two things.
One: that Yeats looked incredibly like Harrison Ford in the teaching scenes from Indiana Jones and
Two: there were no women on it.
Sitting in that same English classroom in the lates 80s/early 1990s, the Leaving Cert poetry book was Soundings, an edition that was edited by Gus Martin, who later lectured me in English at UCD. Back then, how many women poets were included in this edition? One. Uno. Ban amháin. And not even an Irish one at that (Emily Dickinson). The Leaving Cert poetry course now, thankfully, involves studying the work of Eavan Boland, Elizabeth Bishop and Sylvia Plath. These exclusions may not be intentional, but in contemporary terms anyway, there’s no excuse for them.
It still goes on though, as yesterday’s post on the ‘Banned Books and Literary Landmarks’ series coming up in the UK Independent proves, with only two out of 25 writers in the series being women. Are we to assume that less books by women have been censored than books by men? Hardly…
If a poster has to feature 12 writers, it should do so regardless of gender, but then Omani asked me specifically who I’d pick if I had to choose a list of 12 Irish female writers for a similar poster. Over the weekend I thought about it a lot. Should the poster include the most high profile? The most prolific? What about the women writers - particularly pre-nineteenth century - that I haven’t read? Or even the 20th century ones I haven’t got around to yet. So with those biases in mind, here’s a list based purely on writers I like and ones I’ve read. No doubt there are some more obscure ones that would be perfect for Red Mum’s very enjoyable Great Irish Women series.
The 12
* Maeve Brennan (1917.1993) - One of Ireland’s best short story writers, Brennan also wrote ‘The Talk of the Town’ column for The New Yorker.
Read: The Visitor and The Springs of Affection.
Post: Maevh Brennan - The Forgotten Writer.
* MJ Hyland (1968) - Born to Irish parents and based in Australia, Hyland’s debut How the Light Gets In has been compared to JD Salinger and SE Hinton.
Read: the Booker short-listed Carry Me Down and her essay ‘My Father The Armed Robber’.
Post: 2004 Sigla Interview with MJ Hyland.
* Edna O’Brien (1932-)- Often compared to a female James Joyce, O’Brien is a literary writer’s writer who has tackled troubling subjects.
Read: The Country Girls Trilogy, her short story ‘A Journey’.
Post: “In South Africa, she’s as famous as De Valera”.
* Kate O’Brien (1897-1974) - Author of numerous novels that managed to get banned in Ireland for their subject matter (Mary Lavelle and The Land of Spices).
Read: her classic novel The Ante Room.
*Elizabeth Bowen (1899-1973) - Champion of ‘Big House’ literature, the decline of the Anglo-Irish ascendency and Modernism, Bowen is a master of both novel and short story.
Read: The Last September, The Heat of the Day and her story ‘Her Table Spread’.
* Eavan Boland (1944-) - Probably the best female poet Ireland has ever produced, Boland is now studied as part of the Leaving Cert, and her work is said to represent the “Irish female past”, as it mingles representations of history and female identity.
Read: Nightfeed and New Collected Poems.
* Mary Lavin (1912-1996) - a visionary of the short story medium, Lavin has written extensive collections of the shorter form tackling identity, family and mortality.
Read: ‘Lilacs’ and ‘Sarah’ from Tales from Bective Bridge.
* Molly Keane (1904 - 1996) - Her friend and contemporary Elizabeth Bowen dominated the pool of ‘Big House’ literature but Keane’s writing on the subject is warmer and more acutely observed.
Read: Good Behaviour and Time After Time.
* Maria Edgeworth (1768-1849) - Author of one of the most enduring literary classics about landlord-era Ireland, she was also a profilic essayist and children’s writer.
Read: Castle Rackrent.
* Jennifer Johnston (1930-) - My first introduction to Jennifer Johnston was Shadows on our Skin in school and Johnston’s books have won her numerous awards, including The Whitbread First Book Award for her novel, The Old Jest (1979), which was set during the War of Independence.
Read: How Many Miles To Babylon?
* Iris Murdoch (1919 . 1999) - most people forget that she was born here, but Murdoch - a prolific writer who produced scores of books (novels, plays, poetry and philosophy) - is one of Ireland’s best novelists and won The Booker Prize in 1978.
Read: The Sea, The Sea and Under the Net.
*Julia O’Faolain (1932-) - Daughter of Seán Ó Faoláin, Julia is an outstanding short story writer in her right.
Read: ‘First Conjugation’ from her short story collection Meloncholy Baby and Other Stories.
Would love to hear other people’s suggestions…
February 22nd, 2007 at 9:53 am
So who would you take off the male to put in a female. Presuming that it is only 12 writers that can fit on the poster.
February 22nd, 2007 at 9:59 am
Hi Simon
I think Omani’s question was more about picking 12 women, rather than booting any of the 12 very worthy writers off the original. Maybe they could update by expanding the numbers? To say, 15 or 20?
Who’s your favourite Irish female writer?
February 22nd, 2007 at 10:28 am
People forget that Iris Murdoch was born here because she is really a British writer; there’s very little of Ireland in her work and she is certainly not considered Irish in the UK, just as Francis Bacon, despite being born in Kildare is hardly an Irish painter. I would replace Iris with Medbh McGuckian - surprised she wasn’t in there to begin with.
February 22nd, 2007 at 10:33 am
Ironically you could say the same of Shaw or Wilde (in terms of not being considered Irish in the UK) and the amount of Ireland in Beckett is questionable. Another of Murdoch’s best books does deal with Ireland - ‘The Red and The Green’.
I like McGuckian’s poems, ditto Paula Meehan, but it’s hard to cram everyone into these lists and I wouldn’t choose either over Murdoch.
February 22nd, 2007 at 11:36 am
Cecelia Ahern. She’s great she is…
February 22nd, 2007 at 11:41 am
I really didn’t enjoy Eavan Boland on the Leaving Cert…I do remember my English teacher denouncing her in pretty strong terms “drippy shit” etc, he was a bit of a character, perhaps this bias filtered through, but I couldn’t really enjoy those poems.
Maybe I should go back, it’s odd how in school they give you such 2 dimensional images of poets, just their work and only sanitised versions of their lives and personalities.
That was especially the case with Larkin, at least until the same English teacher took over the class in 6th year and read us a really nasty racist piece Larkin wrote after a cricket match, England vs the West Indies.
I often wonder would they take him off the course if parents ever got wind of all the subsequent “weird shit” he was supposedly into.
February 22nd, 2007 at 11:41 am
great post Sinead. I really don’t like Jennifer Johnston though. Her stuff is so… simple?
I would have to add Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill to that list.
February 22nd, 2007 at 11:55 am
It’s a big subject. I try to look at artists as people, they are either good or not. Gender is irrelevant. But the poster in question relates to some writers of a different era when men dominated and women couldn’t even vote. Yes it should be updated based on merits. I’m not a fan of best male and best female type nonsense in the arts. It stiffles freedom of judgement and equality. I’ve just noticed that in my own blogroll list that 5 of the 8 are female. I never thought about it before.
February 22nd, 2007 at 12:00 pm
I don’t think there’s really a similarity between Murdoch’s situation and those of Wilde, Shaw or Beckett (or Sheridan and Goldsmith for that matter either); they all lived their formative years in Ireland. Murdoch, like Laurence Sterne and William Congreve, left as a child. It is ironic that four of the dramatists I mentioned above should have been the architects of the classic British comedy of manners when Irish comedy is quite a different beast. But they are all, at the very least, Anglo-Irish. As for Beckett, even when you read him in French, the Irishness runs through like the name ‘Bundoran’ in a stick of rock. I’d say he’s more Irish than a number of contemporary writers, such as Colum McCann or Yawn Banville. I’ve always been annoyed by that original poster; Ireland has long been a resolutely philistine country, and despite the efforts many in recent years, things haven’t improved an awful lot, but if there are tourists to be attracted, we’ll toss a dozen writers on a poster and pretend that their spirits are to be found in the back of the Palace Bar. And Liam O’Flaherty should have been on the original anyway - along with Flann, the only great Irish writer in both our national languages.
February 22nd, 2007 at 12:07 pm
Mart, I’m warning you…
Ronan, I know a few people who can’t handle Eavan Boland alright. It is very interesting to note how these poets were thought in school. I remember a female teacher talking a lot about Yeats and focusing on Maud Gonne and the unrequited love stuff. I didn’t find out til years later that they actually got it on.
Thanks Una, I think HMMTB? is a great book. Could it be that Johnston opens herself up to accusations of simplicity because she’s such a minimalist? Perhaps.
Oh yes, Nuala Ni Dhomnhnaill is a fine, fine poet and another reason I curse my shabby grasp of Irish and can’t read some of her stuff in its original language.
John, that’s what it’s all about and you’re gender aligning things into gender camps is unhelpful, but it’s worth noting when omissions occur. To me, art is art is art, no matter who’s creating it. When I think of my favourite artists/writers/actors/musicians, I don’t prefix it in my head with ‘male’ or ‘female’.
The poster is not that old as far as I know - not if bowsies like Brendan Behan and Flann O’Brien were on it - so I’m sure there were plenty of contemporary women they could have picked.
February 22nd, 2007 at 12:13 pm
Seanachie, apologies, we must have been posting at the same time.
Re the four dramatists and the British comedy of manners, I’ve always found that fascinating and wondered if their being architects of that arm of drama (and being so good at it) has lead to them being labled ‘British’ in some circles and absorbed, as if by some sort of literary osmosis, into it.
Irishness and Ireland is identifiable in Beckett, but I always find him more of an Internationale, a non-geographic Everyman. Maybe that’s because of the huge sense of placelessness in his work?
February 22nd, 2007 at 1:50 pm
I think my point was that as you were saying the problem with the poster was the lack of women in it. The to correct it. Someone would have to be bumped off the poster to fit a female. Also if you expand it to 15 people. What other males come into contention. John McGaritian Heany, john b keane, roddy doyle etc etc. As for favourite female don’t know. I am a philistine. Other then Playboy of the western world for leaving cert, I have read none on the poster or the females on your list. I know I am ashamed
February 22nd, 2007 at 1:54 pm
Simon, don’t be! I’m just a book geek, that’s my excuse. Why not pick a writer each off the original poster and the 12 women and start there and see how you get on?
Quite a few of them have written short story collections, so you could ease yourself into things.
I also think you’d really like Brendan Behan’s ‘Borstal Boy’.
February 22nd, 2007 at 2:12 pm
Great post, better than being in a book shop - I now have a vast extention to my ‘must read’ list.
On the issue I’m like you Sinead in that I wouldn’t rewrite cultural history just for the sake of getting a quota of women in there and I think it is fair to say that men were the predominate producers of writing/art etc at one time - however they werent totally on there own. Its a difficult thing to ask the history books (and posters) to reflect reality but ask we should.
February 22nd, 2007 at 5:15 pm
Maire Mac an tSaoi (daughter of politician Paddy McEntee, and spouse of Conor Cruise O’Brien) has a reputation as an eminent Gaelic speaking poet. She resigned from Aosdana in a row over the election of Francis Stuart to the status of Saoi (because of his WW2 radio broadcasts from Berlin). Her autobiography, The Same Ageas the State, published a few years ago, is an insight into the Kerry Gaeltacht and social aspects of Ireland from the 1940s to the early 1990s. But you were pragmatic to stick to English writers.
February 22nd, 2007 at 6:19 pm
I think the Irish writers’ poster is fine as it is. Those mentioned are all of superior quality, the only female coming anyway close being Edna O’Brien. Instead of altering the classic, why not create a Modern Irish Writers poster to reflect more modern values i.e. include women for the sake of it rather than on individual merit.
February 23rd, 2007 at 1:42 am
Oh thank you Sinead. What a great platform you’ve given this. And what fine contributions so far too.
I put my daughter Grace to bed most nights. The bed-going ritual includes saying goodnight to the poster. She (17 months) says goodnight to Sam Beckett (her favourite), William Butler Yeats and Oscar Wilde every time. She moves around the poster and reaches out to the others from time to time. But, so far she’s shown little interest in James Joyce. (This may be explained by his position in bottom left hand corner.)
I was shocked to discover that I’d been inculcating her with the assumpsion that all Irish Writers are men!
As far as I’m concerned, I’m putting the greatest Irish writer of all time to her bed. So far I have abundant evidence Grace is hooked on reading. It’s only a matter of time before she pens her first significant words.
So the current situation cannot be allowed to continue. There must be a sister poster: another 12 feminine heads, each with their own quotation to give a flavour of their style.
As far as I’m concerned, nothing less will do. And I intend to make it happen. There will be a poster in every classroom, postcards too. There will be an end to the blindness that afflicted me while I tolerated the misrepresentation of talent.
We all know that role-modelling matters. We know that children pick up their stance on life very early in the proceedings. It is my view that huge numbers of Irish people have been misled into a serious misunderstanding, myself most of all.
The important thing is not to determine the best 12, or 24, Irish Writers. That’s a matter of fascinating chatter: I’m as keen on that as I am an unreliable judge of literary prowess.
The issue is: how best to facilitate our young women to write. For as long as we constrain them within a male straightjacket, pretending that Irish Writers are all men, we saddle them with all the issues that Eavan Boland wrote about so brilliantly and illuminatingly in “Object Lessons”. (For that book alone, I will fight for her inclusion in the magnificent 12.)
I am over the moon that so many people have joined in so quickly. I hate the way blog culture is infested with short term issues: I want this debate kept alive until I’ve had time, and will, to read loads of writers I’ve never considered.
Bless you for your erudition which you use so helpfully. I wish I had a blog that had half the credibility this one has. You are indeed a place where fine minds cluster. Long may this one run and run.
February 23rd, 2007 at 1:21 pm
Nuala O’Faolain, her book almost there is must reading for women of a certain age, perhaps and especially Irish women of a certain…..
February 23rd, 2007 at 1:22 pm
Being in a hurry and not wearing the right specs, should have been of course, Nuala O’Faolain’s “Almost There”
February 23rd, 2007 at 10:32 pm
Much as I hated that awful book of hers, the only female Irish writer I had heard of when I was in school (and at the time I knew all the male writers on the poster) was Péig Sayers. I think I must have just presumed there were no others.
February 24th, 2007 at 2:56 pm
Greetings to everyone who’s contributed so far, and greetings too to the many readers who hover without commenting.
I’d be grateful for a bit of help with a task I’ve begun.
I’d like to collect quoteable quotes from the Irish Women Writers Sinead has highlighted. Other writers too…
For example, on the Male poster, James Joyce (1882-1941) is quoted:
“I will not serve that in which I no longer believe, whether it call itself my home, my fatherland or my church; and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can, using for my defence the only arms I allow myself to use - silence, exile and cunning.” (Portrait of TAAAYM)
February 27th, 2007 at 12:17 am
It looks like this thread is now dead… Perhaps we need time for reflection and reading…
I’ve been asking a few people who they’d consider worth a mention: these are a few who haven’t had a mention so far -
Maeve Binchey
Rita Anne Higgins
Eileen NiCuinalean (not sure of spelling)
Doreen NiBhrin
Clare Keegan (I’ve never heard of her)
Mary Leland
Bridget O’Connor
Eilis Ni Dhuibhne
Clare Boylan
Mary Beckett
Sara Berkeley
I think it’s amazing what Claire said
“the only female Irish writer I had heard of when I was in school (and at the time I knew all the male writers on the poster) was Péig Sayers. I think I must have just presumed there were no others.”
February 27th, 2007 at 1:44 pm
Poor Maeve Brennan, talented gal-turned-crazy lady. Have to chime in on Eavan Boland though - nothing to do with crummy English teachers, she’s just terrible.
February 27th, 2007 at 1:46 pm
Maeve Binchy, Omaniblog? Nice middlebrow easy reading, no doubt, and I rather like her as a radio or television interviewee (a wonderful effervescent personality) but not up with the serious writers. Clare Boylan perhaps. One other possibility is novelist and poet Leland Bardwell, but I’ve only read one novel and a short volume of her poems. She has edited Cyphers literary magazine, and is a founder of the annual Scriobh literary festival in Sligo.
February 27th, 2007 at 5:44 pm
Garreth,
I’m only reporting what one person said to me. I’ve never read Maeve Binchey. Do you really mean to knock “easy reading”?
The person I’d like to put forward, even though i’ve not read her is Marian Keyes. I heard her talk a great story on Marion Finoucane one Saturday morning.
Also I found a web site which seems to be a comprehensive list of all Irish women writers with links to sites that feature their work.
I spotted in passing that Trinty College university has a course called something like “Irish women writing…”: looks like there may be a few academics out there who have read all these women whose work has been buried beneath the male tombstone.
You are the first person to mention Leland Bardwell… When was she born? (excuse me being lazy and wanting to keep this going…)
February 27th, 2007 at 6:09 pm
Apologies for not replying sooner as I was away/hectic/using the PC only when necessary due to RSI.
Garreth, I remember Maire Mac an tSaoi from the Leaving Cert poetry course, I think she may have written prose too as a story from the ‘Scothscealta’ book is ringing bells.
Nony, agreed.
Ainelivia, O’Faolain is a fine memoir writer and I’ve really enjoyed some of her journalism. I have to confess to not knowing anything of her fiction writing (if it even exists).
Claire, you’ve made me shudder thinking about Peig. That book was responsible for engendering an early (and thankfully revised) hatred of studying Irish in school.
Ballistic, I think that 2004 biography (Homesick at the New Yorker) tried to reclaim her as a writer, rather than a woman who’s life ended in mental illness.
Finally, omani…
I still don’t think we should have an exclusively female poster, as many of the posters have said above, art should be judged on merit, not gender, but I did want to point out at least, that there ARE at least 12 women to fill such a poster.
Young women are writing, it seems though that a lot of them are writing in non-literature genres (crime, chick lit).
I’ve only read a handful of the women you mentioned in your list, but I have a copy of Leland Bardwell’s ‘The House’ to read and I know that sadly, Claire Boylan died last year.
Actually come to think of it, I should have posted a link to Cutting the Night in Two, an anthology from about 2001 which features several of those writers you mention.
I love the idea of Grace saying ‘Goodnight’ to all of those writers - it’s such a literary scene in itself.
February 28th, 2007 at 12:17 am
Leland Bardwell is either late 70s or early 80s. She’s been writing poetry and prose since the early 1960s. I first came across her individual poems in a bohemian 1960s literary magazine (sadly defunct) called The Holy Door. Leland belongs to Aosdana, and a couple of months back was given a civic reception by the Mayor of Sligo in recognition of her contribution to literature in general and her annual Scriobh literary festival in the Model Arts Niland Centre in Sligo. As for ‘easy reading’, well, I enjoy it myself (I ‘borrowed’ a sister in law’s copy of Maeve’s Circle of Friends and liked it) but, like pulp fiction in general, it simply helps to pass the time and is not to be taken seriously. I mean, Deirdre Purcell does the same kind of thing, although for craftmanship (should that be craftpersonship?) Maeve Binchy has the edge over all Irish competitors - and no steamy erotic scenes either to spice things up. Try Henry Miller’s Quiet Days in Clichy if you like that sort of thing.
March 1st, 2007 at 10:38 pm
“… art should be judged on merit, not gender,” : Sinead, well said.
I don’t think any Irish woman will displace one of the existing 12 men on that poster which presents the 12 best Irish writers (even though the poster doesn’t claim to present the “best” Irish writers”.
I certainly don’t think there will ever be a poster with 6 men and 6 women on it.
But I see a place for a poster of 12 Irish Women Writers. The discussion on here suggests that there are many unread Irish women writers. So a poster of 12 women would be an education in itself, surely?
But the key point I want to highlight and put forward for consideration is this. Young Irish girls today have no poster showing the best Irish women writers. Boys have a poster which shows Irish writers and it so happens that they are all men.
We all identify in some way, at some level, with our own kind.
I have a feeling that the Irish woman who writes writes against a background that supports the view that men write about the big picture, the big issues, with the big quotable quotes. Is it not the case that it looks as if Irish women writers are creatures of the domestic scene.
I love the domestic but I’m not going to bring up my daughter as if that was to be her arena.
As a parent, I want a companion poster which has not only images but words that impress. Surely you’ll support that?
Please. I’m not asking you to support my view, only my objective.
March 1st, 2007 at 10:41 pm
Garreth,
Thanks for all the valuable information. I’ve started making up a file of all this stuff and you’ve been a shining example of how blogging throws up new avenues.
March 2nd, 2007 at 10:34 am
I’m afraid I don’t get Jennifer Johnston. I really didn’t like HMMTB? — thought it was precious and saccharine. I definitely wasn’t convinced (being male myself) by her male characters, not to say anything about the bloodless descriptions of war — bloodless meant figuratively, of course.
One Irish woman who deserves to be on the waiting list of your list is Sinead Morrissey. I thought her ‘State of the Prisons’ was terrific. Some poems at http://www.qub.ac.uk/heaneycentre/research/sinead-listofpoems.htm.
March 2nd, 2007 at 6:26 pm
degreezero,
I’ve just read “awaiting burial”. I see what you mean about Sinead Morrissey being a good poet.
March 5th, 2007 at 9:22 pm
I think a poster of women writers is a fantastic idea. Booting six men from the original in the interest of gender equality is madness.
I would defintitely include Claire Keegan. Her short stories are amazing.
I would also include Sinead Morrissey, Mary Lavin, Molly Keane, Meave Brennan.
Actually, it’s only when you try to compile a list that you realise how few brilliant female Irish writers there are. Or maybe they are out there and just not widely read and well known.
March 6th, 2007 at 11:57 pm
ParisianC,
I’m delighted to find your support for the idea. Thank you.
As you say “… maybe they are out there and just not widely read and well known.”
I really don’t think anyone knows how good the Irish women writers have been.
The establishment, the culture, the power and the writers of history have all been male, haven’t they?
How good is “Castle Rackrent” (1800) by Maria Edgeworth? How influential was it on later Irish novelists, on English novelists?
Supposing I was to assert that Jane Austin wouldn’t have been half the writer she was unless she’d read “Castle Rackrent”?
If we go round saying there have been very few brilliant Irish women writers, we might end up believing ourselves.
I think it’s time someone who’s done the Trinity College course on Irish women writers spoke up here.
March 7th, 2007 at 9:35 pm
Sinead,
Would you mind if we keep this going here on your blog. I’m winding myself up with a load of research, reading like mad. Never realised there were so many important Irish women writers in the graveyard without headstones.
Another good book: “Ireland’s Women Writings Past and Present”, selected by Katie Donovan, A.Norman Jeffares and Brendan Kennelly, published 1994 by Kyle Cathie Ltd, GB. ISBN 1-85626-132-8 - 146 Irish women writers.
From Linda Anderson (1949-) to Lady Jane Francesca Wilde (1826-96) who wrote as ‘Speranza’ in ‘The Nation’.
If you’d prefer, I’ll migrate the thread to my blog, but I don’t want to do this. I see this having legs to run all this year. Especially when we get on to publishing quotable quotes from each of the main contenders for the ultimate 12.
March 7th, 2007 at 9:36 pm
I should have said I found the book in Chapter’s Bookshop in Dublin for E3.99.
It’s dedicated to Mary Robinson, President of Ireland.
September 12th, 2007 at 2:01 pm
This should be interesting:
http://www.sineadgleeson.com/blog/2007/09/12/women-writers-th-irish-independent-books-and-edna-obrien-on-film/