Writer and patron Christine Pakenham (neé Trew) was born #OTD 1900 in Somerset. She studied classics at Oxford, then married Edward, later Earl of Longford, and moved to Castlepollard, Co Westmeath. They bought shares in the Gate Theatre, Dublin where Christine designed costumes, managed productions, adapted and wrote plays. She also wrote books: A Biography of Dublin, Country Places, Making Conversation
#IrishWomenWriters #Mastodaoine

📷 fair use on Wikipedia
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christine_Longford

Sybil le Brocquy, playwright and patron, died #OTD in 1973. As an organiser, she helped set up Women's International League for Irish Civil Rights, PEN, Amnesty in Ireland. Wrote plays for Abbey Theatre, Radio Éireann. Set up Book of the Year award. Trustee of National Library of Ireland. Mammy of artist Louis
#IrishWomenWriters #Mastodaoine

No 📷 on Wikipedia page! Bronze bust of Sybil le Brocquy by her artist daughter Melanie le Brocquy from https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/art-and-design/visual-art/art-in-focus-sybil-le-brocquy-by-melanie-le-brocquy-1.3991869

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sybil_le_Brocquy

Kate O'Brien, one of many female Irish writers more famous abroad than at home, died #OTD in 1974. Many of her books were banned in Ireland. With themes of female agency and sexuality, she was a pioneer of queer representation. She was also an anti-fascist and vocal critic of De Valera. She wrote fiction, biographies, plays, travel, journalism.
Tbh we're kinda in love with her and this stunning photo 😍
#IrishWomenWriters #Mastodaoine
📷 possibly taken by Sasha Stone, 1926
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kate_O'Brien_(novelist)

Poet Mary Devenport O'Neill was born #OTD in 1879. She and her writer husband Joseph O'Neill hosted a 'Thursdays at Home' salon for writers and artists inc WB Yeats, Francis Stuart, Frank O'Connor. She contributed to Dublin Magazine, Irish Times, The Bell. Published book Prometheus and Other Poems (1929), included in Oxford anthology (1936)
#IrishWomenWriters #Mastodaoine
📷 Mary Devenport and Joseph O'Neill on their wedding day in 1908, public domain on Wikimedia Commons
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Devenport_O'Neill

We've been around Newbridge this week, home of author Molly Keane (MJ Farrell), who was born #OTD in 1904. She wrote novels and plays about the lives of "respectable houses", including Good Behaviour, shortlisted for Booker Prize and reprinted as a Virago Modern Classic (📷). Remarkably there's still no photo on her Wikipedia page!
#IrishWomenWriters #Mastodaoine
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molly_Keane

Author and philosopher Iris Murdoch was born in Dublin #OTD in 1919 and grew up in England. She wrote books, plays and poetry on themes of good and evil, morality and the unconscious. She won the Booker Prize for The Sea, The Sea in 1978. She was made a Dame for services to literature.
"I think being a woman is like being Irish. Everyone says you're important and nice, but you take second place all the same."
#IrishWomenWriters #mastodaoine
📷 fair use on Wikipedia
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iris_Murdoch

Leland Bardwell, poet, author and literary editor, died #OTD 2016 aged 94. Her work explored a difficult family upbringing ("a crescendo of madness") and experience on the literary scene in London and Dublin. She later moved to Sligo and founded Scríobh literary festival
#IrishWomenWriters #Mastodaoine

📷 Irish Writers Online (still none on her Wikipedia page)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leland_Bardwell

Writer and film critic Mary Manning died #OTD in 1999. Having trained in the Abbey Theatre she became a writer for the Gate Theatre then started adapting stories for silent films. She produced films in 1920s and 30s and co-founded Dublin Film Society. As a film critic she wrote for Irish Times, The Atlantic. Lived later life in Boston. Critical of Hollywood's "stereotypical portrayal of Ireland and the Irish"
#IrishWomenWriters #mastodaoine

📷 fair use on Wikipedia
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Manning_(writer)

Writer and legal reformer Caroline Norton died #OTD in 1877 (as Richard Brinsley Sheridan's granddaughter, we invoke the Irish granny rule to claim her)
Having left an abusive marriage, she campaigned successfully for changes in English law for divorced women. She wrote novels, plays, poetry and political pamphlets but was not a fan of women's suffrage!
Famed society hostess, and muse to writers and artists 📷 by George Hayter; Erin by Daniel Maclise
#IrishWomenWriters
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caroline_Norton

Violet Florence Martin, one half of writing partnership Somerville and Ross, was born #OTD in 1862 in Connemara. Studied at Alexandra College. With her 2nd cousin and life partner Edith Somerville, she wrote the Irish RM and other books (as Martin Ross). VP of Munster Women's Franchise League and Gaelic Revivalist. Trinity College Dublin awarded her posthumous Hon DLitt

#IrishWomenWriters #LesbianWriters #IrishLGBTQIwomen #LGBTQIhistory

📷 PD on Wikicommons

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violet_Florence_Martin

Writer Clotilde 'Clo' Graves was born #OTD in 1863 in Buttevant Castle, Co Cork. Studied art in London before becoming a journalist and playwright. Enjoyed success in UK and USA. Contributed to Punch. She wrote novels as Richard Dehan - The Dop Doctor made into 1915 film. Read more about Clo in Clodagh Finn's Through Her Eyes, A History of Ireland in 21 Women
#IrishWomenWriters #Mastodaoine

📷 Clotilde Graves by Herbert Rose Barraud, fair use on Wikimedia Commons

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clotilde_Graves

Writer and revolutionary Máire Comerford was born #OTD in 1893. Member of Cumann na mBan, despatch carrier in 1916. She was an observer in the 1st Dáil. Irish White Cross. Anti-Treaty, imprisoned in Civil War for "defiant attitude". Journalist with Irish Press. Her memoir On Dangerous Ground was edited by Hillary Dully and published posthumously in 2021 by Lilliput Press

#IrishWomensHistory #IrishWomenWriters #mastodaoine

📷 public domain on Wikimedia Commons

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maire_Comerford

Poet and scholar Helen Waddell was born #OTD in 1889 in Tokyo to Belfast parents. Studied at QUB and Oxford. Acclaimed in 1930s but largely forgotten today, she wrote poetry, plays and history books, translated Latin poems. Edited The 19th Century magazine. Awarded Royal Society of Literature Benson Medal. Rake of honorary degrees!
#IrishWomenWriters #mastodaoine

📷 borrowed from Northern Ireland Screen (no attribution). Helen's Wikipedia page has no photo!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Waddell

Writer Maria Edgeworth died #OTD in 1849 in Edgeworthstown, Co. Longford. A prolific and widely read author of adult and children's books, notably Castle Rackrent, a satire on Anglo-Irish gentry. She also wrote about education, politics and estate management. As a landlord, she worked to improve living standards of tenants but during Famine only provided relief if rent was paid!
#IrishWomenWriters

📷 portrait by John Downman 1807, public domain on Wikimedia Commons
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Edgeworth

Edith Somerville, writer, illustrator and suffragist, was born #OTD in 1858. As one half of Somerville and Ross, with her cousin Violet Martin, she published 14 books including The Irish RM. When Violet died, she continued writing as S and R, claiming they still communicated through séances. Speculation they were romantic as well as writing partners.
#IrishWomenWriters

📷 Somerville on her horse Tarbush, no restrictions on Wikimedia Commons

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_Somerville

Novelist Molly Keane died #OTD in 1996. From Newbridge, Co Kildare, she wrote as MJ Farrell until 1984's Good Behaviour, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. This beautiful edition was released by Virago Modern Classics in 2011. Molly's daughter Sally Phipps wrote her biography
#IrishWomenWriters
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molly_Keane

Author Jane Barlow died #OTD in 1917. Her story collection Irish Idylls ran to 9 editions. She was a contributor to the National Literary Society and pals with Katherine Tynan and Sarah Purser. The first woman to be awarded an honorary D Litt from the University of Dublin. We came across her in The Art of the Glimpse collection ed by @sineadgleeson
#IrishWomenWriters

📷 Portrait by Sarah Purser @TheHughLane

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Barlow

Writer and nationalist Alice Milligan died #OTD in 1953. "Small, aggressive and curious" according to Maud Gonne, she co-founded the Irish Women's Association in Belfast, produced The Shan Van Vocht journal and wrote 11 plays
#IrishWomensHistory
#IrishWomenWriters

We saw this stunning portrait of her in the Estella Solomons exhibition at National Gallery of Ireland 😍

📷 taken by the Wild Gees at @NGIreland (still under copyright

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Milligan

Author Norah Hoult died #OTD in 1984. She wrote short stories and books about Irish family life and later post-war London. Unfathomably "overlooked and neglected" since her death, we discovered her work through @sineadgleeson's The Art of the Glimpse. Her 'Nine Years is a Long Time' tells the story of a sex worker in pre-war Liverpool and includes timeless themes of poverty, middle age and being slut-shamed by your teenage daughter
#IrishWomenWriters
📷 Irish Times
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norah_Hoult

Author, socialist and suffragist Kathleen Coyle died #OTD in 1952. She co-wrote with James Connolly, moved to Paris, hung out with the Joyces. Wanted to be a writer so bad she put her kids in foster care! Best known for her memoir The Magical Realm an Irish childhood

#IrishWomenWriters

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathleen_Coyle