Irish Studies

2 total works

Only Child

by Frank O'Connor

Published December 1961

The story of Frank O'Connor is that of a shy child from a Cork slum who becomes aware that there is something beyond the confines of his life and the lives around him, something grander. And with resolve and labor, he makes his way toward it. From his childhood to the time of his release from imprisonment as a revolutionary, O 'Connor conveys the moral fortune and the tragic elements of life, that sparked his storytelling--a life he describes as a "celebration of those who for me represented all I should ever know of God."

My Father's Son

by Frank O'Connor

Published October 1968

My Father's Son, the second volume of Frank O'Connor's acclaimed memoir, begins where An Only Child left off, with the author coming out of the internment camp after being imprisoned as an Irish revolutionary and plunging into the burgeoning intellectual-political ferment of Dublin in the 1920s.

O'Connor is a young writer struggling to find his place and his voice in a profoundly changed Ireland. Gradually, he begins to establish a formidable reputation. Guests of the Nation and The Saint and Mary Kate belong to this period. The excitement of the Irish literary renaissance is made immediate as O'Connor tells of his friend the poet George Russell, who was the first to publish his work, and of his participation in the triumphs and rivalries of the Abbey Theatre. Here, beautifully rendered, are playwrights Lady Gregory, J. M. Synge, Lennox Robinson, and Sean O'Casey. Central to the book--as he was to O'Connor's life and work--is the complex and majestic figure of William Butler Yeats.

The memoir ends with Yeats's death and with it O'Connor's realization that he can no longer divide his talent between his job and his passion. He begins, at last, his life as a writer.