Eileen O'Faolain
Eileen O'Faolain, originally Eileen Gould, was born in 1902 in County Cork, Ireland, into a family of ardent Irish nationalists. She attended University College in Cork, where she met her future husband, Sean O'Faolain, who adopted his Irish name in 1918 to express his nationalism. Eileen was actively involved in the political climate of her time, having been jailed during the tumultuous period known as "the Troubles." After marrying Sean in 1928, the couple lived in various locations, including Boston and London, before settling in County Wicklow, Ireland.
Although her husband gained significant recognition as a writer, Eileen's contributions were also important in preserving Irish culture through her retellings of folktales, inspired by her childhood. Starting her writing career in the 1940s, she focused on authenticity in storytelling, as noted in her works like "Children of the Salmon, and Other Irish Folktales." Eileen passed away in 1988, leaving behind a legacy that highlights her dedication to Irish folklore and culture. Her husband, Sean, followed her in death in 1991.
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Eileen O'Faolain
Author
- Born: 1902
- Birthplace: County Cork, Ireland
- Died: 1988
Biography
Eileen O’Faolain was born Eileen Gould in 1902 in County Cork, Ireland. The members of her family were fierce Irish nationalists. She attended University College in Cork. Her future husband, then known by his birth name, John Whelan, also attended the same school. The two met in 1918, the same year that Whelan changed his name to its Irish translation, Sean O’Faolain, to show his developing nationalism. The nationalism of Eileen’s father, Jo Gould, helped fuel her future husband’s Irishness. In fact, Eileen herself was jailed during part of the restive period from 1916 to 1923 known as “the Troubles.” For eight years, between 1918 and 1926, she and O’Faolain spent summers at a school run by the Gaelic League in the west of Ireland.
In 1925, Sean O’Faolain returned to the University College in Cork to earn a master of arts in English, and a higher diploma in education. The following year, he received a Commonwealth Fund Fellowship that would permit him to spend the next two years studying at Harvard University in The United States. Before leaving, he spent several months touring Europe with Eileen and a mutual friend and writer, Frank O’Connor.
In 1927, Eileen joined Sean at Harvard. They were married in Boston, Massachusetts, on June 3, 1928. They remained married for sixty years, in spite of Sean’s extramarital affairs. Through John and Mary Marshall, Sean’s Cambridge friends, Eileen was able to teach in the Shady Hill progressive elementary school with Mary Marshall.
In 1929, the couple relocated to London, where they spent four years. Sean O’Faolain taught as St. Mary’s College and published his first collection of short stories. In 1933, their daughter Julia was born and Sean’s first novel was published. The couple returned to Ireland and lived in County Wicklow. Sean O’Faolain earned a living as a journalist. Some years later, the couple had a son named Stephen.
Eileen O’Faolain began writing and publishing in the 1940’s. She drew on the Gaelic folktales she heard in her own childhood in order to find stories to amuse her oldest child. Although her writing would never result in the fame that named her husband one of Ireland’s greatest writers, her work was valuable in preserving Irish culture. Her best-known works are retellings of Irish folktales. Her attitude toward this work is expressed in the forward to Children of the Salmon, and Other Irish Folktales (1965). O’Faolain described the work of the Irish Folklore Institute, founded in 1926, which sent academicians and volunteers to the Gaelic-speaking areas of Ireland to transcribe folktales from their native tellers before these stories were lost. She acknowledged “the generous help and advice” of three of those academicians, rejected the “doctoring” of folktales by the nineteenth century writers who claimed to have translated them, and vowed to keep the translation of those tales “as close as possible to their actual words.”
In retirement, the couple lived in Rosemeen Park near Dun Laoghaire. In 1968, Julia O’Faolian began to publish fiction, much of which concerned Irish issues, making her debut with a short-story collection. She continued to publish short stories and novels through the 1970’s and 1980’s to the present. Eileen O’Faolain died in 1988. Her husband moved into a nursing home in Dublin the next year and died in 1991.