Agnes O'Farrelly
Encyclopedia
Agnes Winifred O'Farrelly (24 June 1874 – 5 November 1951) , was an academic and Professor of Irish at University College Dublin
(UCD). She was also the first female Irish-language novelist, a founding member of Cumann na mBan
, and fourth president of the Camogie Association.
, County Cavan
, one of five daughters and three sons of Peter Dominic Farrelly and Ann Farrelly (née Sheridan). Her first published work was a series of saccharine-sweet articles in the Anglo-Celt
in January–March 1895, ‘Glimpses of Breffni and Meath’ appeared, after which the editor, Edward O'Hanlon encouraged her to study literature.
In February 1887, she signed up to the “Irish Fireside Club,” a new column in the Weekly Freeman, symptomatic of the expanding field of children's literature during the fin de siècle. This club boasted over 60,000 child members during its height, and facilitated the mass-indoctrination of a generation of Irish children into the cultural nationalist movement. She was to become the most vocal female within this club, which moulded her utopian, feminist and nationalist thought throughout adulthood.
lecturer so that she could study the language as part of her Arts Degree. Eoin MacNeill
, Vice-President of the Gaelic League, the main cultural nationalist body in operation in Ireland since 1893, was recruited and a class was set up, with Farrelly (or O'Farrelly as she then became known) encouraging young women from other Women's Colleges in Dublin to attend. Through this initiative, a core group of middle-class and educated female cultural nationalists emerged in the capital city, including Máire Ní Chinnéide and Mary E.L. Butler, who, like O'Farrelly, would go on to play major roles in the Gaelic League's development through the first two decades of the twentieth century, as literary figures, educationalists and language activists.
She graduated from the Royal University of Ireland
(BA 1899, MA 1900), and spent a term in Paris studying under Henri D’Arbois de Jubainville, professor of Celtic in the Collège de France. She was the first woman to have studied Celtic to such an advanced level. O'Farrelly was appointed a lecturer in Irish at Alexandra
and Loreto
colleges, and also taught Irish in the Central Branch of the Gaelic League. She convinced Mary Hayden to apply for the Royal University's Senior Fellowship, in an effort to challenge the view that female scholars were ineligable for such awards. In 1902, along with Mary Hayden
, she helped found the Irish Association of Women Graduates and Candidate Graduates, to promote equal opportunity in university education. She gave evidence to the Robertson (1902) and Fry (1906) commissions on Irish university education, arguing successfully for full co-education at UCD.
Appointed lecturer in modern Irish at UCD in 1909, she was also a member of the first UCD governing body and the NUI Senate (1914–49). When Douglas Hyde
retired in 1932, she was appointed professor of modern Irish in UCD, holding the position till her retirement in 1947. Her brother Alphonsus O'Farrelly became Professor of Science at UCD.
, in order to improve her Irish. Over the next five summers which she spent on Inis Meáin, she became fluent in the Irish language and in August 1899 she founded ‘The Women's Branch’ of the Gaelic League, a year after a men's branch of the Gaelic League was established in both Inis Mór and Inis Meáin. This branch provided the first dedicated leisure time that the island women experienced.
When she returned from the Aran Islands in the autumn of 1898, she signed up to the Central Branch of the Gaelic League in Dublin and soon became a member of its Executive Committee and the most influential female member of the Gaelic League until 1915. Throughout her early involvement in the Gaelic League, O'Farrelly promoted her women’s agenda amongst her influential male colleagues. If anything, this enhanced her popularity, which was testified to when she topped the poll in 1903 and 1904. She was one of the most active and diligent language activists at this time.
In 1907, O'Farrelly became chairperson of Coiste an Oideachais [Educational Committee] of the Gaelic League, having relinquished her role as advising Intermediate examiner in Celtic. Her chief role was to mediate between the diverging views on educational policy within the Gaelic League and to appease elements of the clergy whilst still campaigning for the promotion of Irish within the educational system. According to Roger Casement, it was O'Farrelly who convinced the Commissioner of National Education, Dr. Starkie, of the merits of the bilingual programme in national schools, a programme initiated in 1904 in 27 schools.
in 1914, supporting its having a subordinate role in relation to the Irish Volunteers
, she left the organisation soon afterwards because of her support for recruitment to the British army during World War I
. In 1916 along with Maurice Moore
she gathered a petition that unsuccessfully sought a reprieve of the death sentence of her close friend Roger Casement
. She was a member of a committee of women which negotiated unsuccessfully with IRA leaders to avoid civil war
in 1922. She was defeated as an independent candidate for the NUI constituency
in the general elections of 1923
and June 1927.
. A founder member in 1914 and president (1914–51) of the University College Dublin camogie club
, it was O'Farrelly who persuaded William Gibson
, (the second Lord Ashbourne), to donate a cup for the inter-collegiate camogie competition instituted in 1915. She was appointed honorary president, first of the Ulster Camogie Association and then the Camogie Association in 1934 alongside Maire Gill, who continued to chair central council and congress. She opposed the divisive ban on hockey introduced by the association in 1934 and made several appeals for unity when the Association became embroiled in several splits. In 1941-42 she took over as chair as well as President of the Association, and briefly succeeded in reintegrating the dissident Cork and Dublin boards into the Association before another secession in 1943.
In 1931 a set of medals she presented helped sparked a camogie revival in Cavan which led to 25 teams being affiliated. Further medals for an inter-county match between Cavan and Meath helped start the game in her native county.
, seeking deletion of articles which they believed discriminated against women. O'Farrelly also became a founder and President of the Dublin Soroptimist Club in December 1938.
, she was also associated with the Leinster and Connacht colleges and served as chairperson of the Federation of Irish Language Summer Schools. An anecdote told by Brian O'Nolan deprecating her spoken Irish may have been born out of professional rivalry. She also became president of the Irish Industrial Development Association and the Homespun Society, and administrator of the John Connor Magee Trust for the development of Gaeltacht
industry. She represented the Ulster Gaelic Union at Celtic Congress
es in the 1920s and 1930s.
, attempted to revive the former Celtic Association under the new name of “The Celtic Congress,” thus initiating the second wave of inter-Celtic relations. For O'Farrelly and indeed her closest friend Douglas Hyde
, who also took an active interest, the Celtic Congress held much in common with the Gaelic League with which they had for so long been involved: its raison-d’être was to nurture and promote scholarship and culture (albeit 'Celtic' rather than Irish); the congress was in theory to be held annually (similar to the Oireachtas); and its leading members were now drawn from educationalist and linguistic circles rather than the more exclusive Dublin Castle circle with which it had been associated at the turn of the twentieth century. Mary Hayden, Osborn Bergin, Eoin Mac Néill and Robin Flower were among those also involved in the Irish wing of the Celtic Congress. When E.T. John died in early 1931, O'Farrelly took on a heavier administrative role within the Celtic Congress, and in the Breton Francois Jaffrennou-Taldir’s words, “the Association was given a new life in 1935 [sic], thanks to Miss Agnes O'Farrelly.”
was presented to her by the Women Graduates' Association on her retirement from UCD in 1947, after which she lived at 38 Brighton Road, Rathgar
, where she died on 5 November 1951. The Taoiseach
and President attended her funeral to Deans Grange Cemetery
. She never married, and left an estate valued at £3,109.
O'Farrelly recorded her experiences on Inis Meáin which would later form the basis of her travelogue Smaointe Ar Árainn. The importance of this travelogue lies less in its linguistic features than in the access it provides to the life of women and children on the island, access that the more celebrated account of Synge does not provide. It is also a document which offers significant insight into the aims and aspirations of O'Farrelly herself and of her beloved Gaelic League: it serves as a platform from which O'Farrelly's belief in equality for women is projected; it depicts the modus operandi used by the Gaelic League to promote its ideology on Inis Meáin; and it reveals the manner in which the League's so-called 'Irish-Ireland' principles were assimilated by the islanders.
Out of the Depths (1921) is a collection of political poetry, composed in reaction to the Irish War of Independence
, and it displays how O'Farrelly comes to terms with an Ireland far from her ideal. It portrays the dystopian nature of English power, as O'Farrelly sees it, juxtaposed with the light, spirituality, purity, truth, hope and unity of Ireland, which could enable its future salvation. The overall propagandist purpose of the collection is to offer hope to the demoralised Irish people. Áille an Domhain (1927), produced in a climate of relative stability, reveals a romantic utopianism, and celebrates a return to a harmonious rhythm of life, uninterrupted by the unnatural nature of war.
University College Dublin
University College Dublin ) - formally known as University College Dublin - National University of Ireland, Dublin is the Republic of Ireland's largest, and Ireland's second largest, university, with over 1,300 faculty and 17,000 students...
(UCD). She was also the first female Irish-language novelist, a founding member of Cumann na mBan
Cumann na mBan
Cumann na mBan is an Irish republican women's paramilitary organisation formed in Dublin on 2 April 1914 as an auxiliary of the Irish Volunteers...
, and fourth president of the Camogie Association.
Early life
She was born 24 June 1874 in Raffony House, VirginiaVirginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
, County Cavan
County Cavan
County Cavan is a county in Ireland. It is part of the Border Region and is also located in the province of Ulster. It is named after the town of Cavan. Cavan County Council is the local authority for the county...
, one of five daughters and three sons of Peter Dominic Farrelly and Ann Farrelly (née Sheridan). Her first published work was a series of saccharine-sweet articles in the Anglo-Celt
Anglo-Celt
The Anglo-Celt is a weekly local newspaper published every Thursday in Swellan, Cavan, Ireland, founded in 1846. It exclusively contains local news about Cavan and surroundings. The news coverage of the paper is mainly based on the paper's local county of Cavan...
in January–March 1895, ‘Glimpses of Breffni and Meath’ appeared, after which the editor, Edward O'Hanlon encouraged her to study literature.
In February 1887, she signed up to the “Irish Fireside Club,” a new column in the Weekly Freeman, symptomatic of the expanding field of children's literature during the fin de siècle. This club boasted over 60,000 child members during its height, and facilitated the mass-indoctrination of a generation of Irish children into the cultural nationalist movement. She was to become the most vocal female within this club, which moulded her utopian, feminist and nationalist thought throughout adulthood.
Academic career
As soon as she became financially independent, she enrolled in St. Mary's University College, Dublin, and she duly convinced her College Principal to enlist the College's first ever Irish languageIrish language
Irish , also known as Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is now spoken as a first language by a minority of Irish people, as well as being a second language of a larger proportion of...
lecturer so that she could study the language as part of her Arts Degree. Eoin MacNeill
Eoin MacNeill
Eoin MacNeill was an Irish scholar, nationalist, revolutionary and politician. MacNeill is regarded as the father of the modern study of early Irish medieval history. He was a co-founder of the Gaelic League, to preserve Irish language and culture, going on to establish the Irish Volunteers...
, Vice-President of the Gaelic League, the main cultural nationalist body in operation in Ireland since 1893, was recruited and a class was set up, with Farrelly (or O'Farrelly as she then became known) encouraging young women from other Women's Colleges in Dublin to attend. Through this initiative, a core group of middle-class and educated female cultural nationalists emerged in the capital city, including Máire Ní Chinnéide and Mary E.L. Butler, who, like O'Farrelly, would go on to play major roles in the Gaelic League's development through the first two decades of the twentieth century, as literary figures, educationalists and language activists.
She graduated from the Royal University of Ireland
Royal University of Ireland
The Royal University of Ireland was founded in accordance with the University Education Act 1879 as an examining and degree-awarding university based on the model of the University of London. A Royal Charter was issued on April 27, 1880 and examinations were opened to candidates irrespective of...
(BA 1899, MA 1900), and spent a term in Paris studying under Henri D’Arbois de Jubainville, professor of Celtic in the Collège de France. She was the first woman to have studied Celtic to such an advanced level. O'Farrelly was appointed a lecturer in Irish at Alexandra
Alexandra College
Alexandra College is a private, single-sex school located in Milltown, Dublin, Ireland. It serves girls from ages 4 to 19 as boarding or day pupils. The school is one of the most prestigious in Ireland and ranks highly in Leaving Certificate results tables...
and Loreto
Loreto
-Places:*Loreto, Santiago del Estero, Argentina*Loreto , village and municipality in Misiones Province, Argentina*Loreto, Beni, Bolivia*Loreto , Brazil...
colleges, and also taught Irish in the Central Branch of the Gaelic League. She convinced Mary Hayden to apply for the Royal University's Senior Fellowship, in an effort to challenge the view that female scholars were ineligable for such awards. In 1902, along with Mary Hayden
Mary Hayden
Mary Teresa Hayden was an Irish historian, Irish language activist and campaigner for women's causes.Mary Hayden was educated initially at the Dominican College, Eccles Street and then at Alexandra College in Dublin...
, she helped found the Irish Association of Women Graduates and Candidate Graduates, to promote equal opportunity in university education. She gave evidence to the Robertson (1902) and Fry (1906) commissions on Irish university education, arguing successfully for full co-education at UCD.
Appointed lecturer in modern Irish at UCD in 1909, she was also a member of the first UCD governing body and the NUI Senate (1914–49). When Douglas Hyde
Douglas Hyde
Douglas Hyde , known as An Craoibhín Aoibhinn , was an Irish scholar of the Irish language who served as the first President of Ireland from 1938 to 1945...
retired in 1932, she was appointed professor of modern Irish in UCD, holding the position till her retirement in 1947. Her brother Alphonsus O'Farrelly became Professor of Science at UCD.
Gaelic League
During the summer of 1898, when O'Farrelly had then finished her second year of study at St. Mary's College, Eoin MacNeill arranged for her to visit Inis Meáin, the middle of the Aran IslandsAran Islands
The Aran Islands or The Arans are a group of three islands located at the mouth of Galway Bay, on the west coast of Ireland. They constitute the barony of Aran in County Galway, Ireland...
, in order to improve her Irish. Over the next five summers which she spent on Inis Meáin, she became fluent in the Irish language and in August 1899 she founded ‘The Women's Branch’ of the Gaelic League, a year after a men's branch of the Gaelic League was established in both Inis Mór and Inis Meáin. This branch provided the first dedicated leisure time that the island women experienced.
When she returned from the Aran Islands in the autumn of 1898, she signed up to the Central Branch of the Gaelic League in Dublin and soon became a member of its Executive Committee and the most influential female member of the Gaelic League until 1915. Throughout her early involvement in the Gaelic League, O'Farrelly promoted her women’s agenda amongst her influential male colleagues. If anything, this enhanced her popularity, which was testified to when she topped the poll in 1903 and 1904. She was one of the most active and diligent language activists at this time.
In 1907, O'Farrelly became chairperson of Coiste an Oideachais [Educational Committee] of the Gaelic League, having relinquished her role as advising Intermediate examiner in Celtic. Her chief role was to mediate between the diverging views on educational policy within the Gaelic League and to appease elements of the clergy whilst still campaigning for the promotion of Irish within the educational system. According to Roger Casement, it was O'Farrelly who convinced the Commissioner of National Education, Dr. Starkie, of the merits of the bilingual programme in national schools, a programme initiated in 1904 in 27 schools.
Political activity
She presided at the inaugural meeting of Cumann na mBanCumann na mBan
Cumann na mBan is an Irish republican women's paramilitary organisation formed in Dublin on 2 April 1914 as an auxiliary of the Irish Volunteers...
in 1914, supporting its having a subordinate role in relation to the Irish Volunteers
Irish Volunteers
The Irish Volunteers was a military organisation established in 1913 by Irish nationalists. It was ostensibly formed in response to the formation of the Ulster Volunteers in 1912, and its declared primary aim was "to secure and maintain the rights and liberties common to the whole people of Ireland"...
, she left the organisation soon afterwards because of her support for recruitment to the British army during World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
. In 1916 along with Maurice Moore
Maurice Moore
Maurice Moore was an Irish republican who fought in the Irish War of Independence and was executed in April 1921 after capture in the aftermath of the Clonmult Ambush.Moore was born at Ticnock, Cobh, County Cork in 1897...
she gathered a petition that unsuccessfully sought a reprieve of the death sentence of her close friend Roger Casement
Roger Casement
Roger David Casement —Sir Roger Casement CMG between 1911 and shortly before his execution for treason, when he was stripped of his British honours—was an Irish patriot, poet, revolutionary, and nationalist....
. She was a member of a committee of women which negotiated unsuccessfully with IRA leaders to avoid civil war
Irish Civil War
The Irish Civil War was a conflict that accompanied the establishment of the Irish Free State as an entity independent from the United Kingdom within the British Empire....
in 1922. She was defeated as an independent candidate for the NUI constituency
National University of Ireland (constituency)
National University of Ireland is a parliamentary constituency in Ireland, through which graduates of the National University of Ireland have elected members of various legislative bodies including currently Seanad Éireann.-Summary:...
in the general elections of 1923
Irish general election, 1923
The Irish general election of 1923 was held on 27 August 1923. The newly elected members of the 4th Dáil assembled at Leinster House on 19 September when the new President of the Executive Council and Executive Council of the Irish Free State were appointed. The election was held just after the end...
and June 1927.
Camogie president
Her great legacy to camogie is the Ashbourne CupAshbourne Cup
The Ashbourne Cup is an Irish camogie tournament played each year to determine the national champion university or third level college. The Ashbourne Cup is the highest division in inter-collegiate camogie. The competition features many of the current stars of the game...
. A founder member in 1914 and president (1914–51) of the University College Dublin camogie club
UCD GAA
UCD GAA or University College Dublin Gaelic Athletic Association club is a Dublin based Gaelic games club in University College Dublin. The UCD hurling club was founded in 1900 and boasted the motto's "Ad Astra" and "Cothrom Féinne". The first team was an amalgamation of students from UCD and...
, it was O'Farrelly who persuaded William Gibson
William Gibson, 2nd Baron Ashbourne
William Gibson, 2nd Baron Ashbourne was born at 20 Upper Pembroke Street, Dublin, the son of Edward Gibson, 1st Baron Ashbourne and Frances Maria Adelaide Colles, grand-daughter of Abraham Colles and niece of John Dawson Mayne.He was educated at Harrow School, Trinity College, Dublin and Merton...
, (the second Lord Ashbourne), to donate a cup for the inter-collegiate camogie competition instituted in 1915. She was appointed honorary president, first of the Ulster Camogie Association and then the Camogie Association in 1934 alongside Maire Gill, who continued to chair central council and congress. She opposed the divisive ban on hockey introduced by the association in 1934 and made several appeals for unity when the Association became embroiled in several splits. In 1941-42 she took over as chair as well as President of the Association, and briefly succeeded in reintegrating the dissident Cork and Dublin boards into the Association before another secession in 1943.
In 1931 a set of medals she presented helped sparked a camogie revival in Cavan which led to 25 teams being affiliated. Further medals for an inter-county match between Cavan and Meath helped start the game in her native county.
Work on behalf of female graduates
She was also president of the Irish Federation of University Women (1937–39) and of the National University Women Graduates' Association (1943–7). In 1937 she was actively involved in the Women Graduates' campaign against the new constitutionConstitution of Ireland
The Constitution of Ireland is the fundamental law of the Irish state. The constitution falls broadly within the liberal democratic tradition. It establishes an independent state based on a system of representative democracy and guarantees certain fundamental rights, along with a popularly elected...
, seeking deletion of articles which they believed discriminated against women. O'Farrelly also became a founder and President of the Dublin Soroptimist Club in December 1938.
Irish Colleges and other work
She was a founder member, and subsequently principal for many years, of the Ulster College of Irish, Cloghaneely, County DonegalCounty Donegal
County Donegal is a county in Ireland. It is part of the Border Region and is also located in the province of Ulster. It is named after the town of Donegal. Donegal County Council is the local authority for the county...
, she was also associated with the Leinster and Connacht colleges and served as chairperson of the Federation of Irish Language Summer Schools. An anecdote told by Brian O'Nolan deprecating her spoken Irish may have been born out of professional rivalry. She also became president of the Irish Industrial Development Association and the Homespun Society, and administrator of the John Connor Magee Trust for the development of Gaeltacht
Gaeltacht
is the Irish language word meaning an Irish-speaking region. In Ireland, the Gaeltacht, or an Ghaeltacht, refers individually to any, or collectively to all, of the districts where the government recognises that the Irish language is the predominant language, that is, the vernacular spoken at home...
industry. She represented the Ulster Gaelic Union at Celtic Congress
Celtic Congress
The International Celtic Congress is a cultural organisation that seeks to promote the Celtic languages of the nations of Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Brittany, Cornwall and the Isle of Man. It was formed out of previously existing bodies that had sought to advance the same goals such as the Celtic...
es in the 1920s and 1930s.
Celtic Congress
In 1917, Edward Thomas John, a Welsh nationalist and Member of Parliament for AngleseyAnglesey
Anglesey , also known by its Welsh name Ynys Môn , is an island and, as Isle of Anglesey, a county off the north west coast of Wales...
, attempted to revive the former Celtic Association under the new name of “The Celtic Congress,” thus initiating the second wave of inter-Celtic relations. For O'Farrelly and indeed her closest friend Douglas Hyde
Douglas Hyde
Douglas Hyde , known as An Craoibhín Aoibhinn , was an Irish scholar of the Irish language who served as the first President of Ireland from 1938 to 1945...
, who also took an active interest, the Celtic Congress held much in common with the Gaelic League with which they had for so long been involved: its raison-d’être was to nurture and promote scholarship and culture (albeit 'Celtic' rather than Irish); the congress was in theory to be held annually (similar to the Oireachtas); and its leading members were now drawn from educationalist and linguistic circles rather than the more exclusive Dublin Castle circle with which it had been associated at the turn of the twentieth century. Mary Hayden, Osborn Bergin, Eoin Mac Néill and Robin Flower were among those also involved in the Irish wing of the Celtic Congress. When E.T. John died in early 1931, O'Farrelly took on a heavier administrative role within the Celtic Congress, and in the Breton Francois Jaffrennou-Taldir’s words, “the Association was given a new life in 1935 [sic], thanks to Miss Agnes O'Farrelly.”
Retirement and death
An oil portrait by Seán KeatingSeán Keating
Seán Keating was an Irish romantic-realist painter who painted some iconic images of the Irish War of Independence and of the early industrialization of Ireland...
was presented to her by the Women Graduates' Association on her retirement from UCD in 1947, after which she lived at 38 Brighton Road, Rathgar
Rathgar
Rathgar is a suburb of Dublin, Ireland, lying about 3 kilometres south of the city centre.-Amenities:Rathgar is largely a quiet suburb with good amenities, including primary and secondary schools, nursing homes, child-care and sports facilities, and good public transport to the city centre...
, where she died on 5 November 1951. The Taoiseach
Taoiseach
The Taoiseach is the head of government or prime minister of Ireland. The Taoiseach is appointed by the President upon the nomination of Dáil Éireann, the lower house of the Oireachtas , and must, in order to remain in office, retain the support of a majority in the Dáil.The current Taoiseach is...
and President attended her funeral to Deans Grange Cemetery
Deans Grange Cemetery
Deans Grange Cemetery, or more commonly known today as Deansgrange Cemetery, is situated in the suburban area of Deansgrange in the Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown part of the former County Dublin, Ireland. Since it first opened in 1865, over 150,000 people have been buried there...
. She never married, and left an estate valued at £3,109.
Writing
O'Farrelly wrote in both Irish and English, often under the pseudonym ‘Uan Uladh’. Prose works include The Reign of Humbug (1900), Leabhar an Athar Eoghan (1903), Filidheacht Sheagháin Uí Neachtain (1911), and her novels Grádh agus Crádh (1901), An Cneamhaire (1902) and the travelogue Smaointe ar Árainn (1902). Poetry includes Out of the depths (1921) and Áille an Domhain (1927).O'Farrelly recorded her experiences on Inis Meáin which would later form the basis of her travelogue Smaointe Ar Árainn. The importance of this travelogue lies less in its linguistic features than in the access it provides to the life of women and children on the island, access that the more celebrated account of Synge does not provide. It is also a document which offers significant insight into the aims and aspirations of O'Farrelly herself and of her beloved Gaelic League: it serves as a platform from which O'Farrelly's belief in equality for women is projected; it depicts the modus operandi used by the Gaelic League to promote its ideology on Inis Meáin; and it reveals the manner in which the League's so-called 'Irish-Ireland' principles were assimilated by the islanders.
Out of the Depths (1921) is a collection of political poetry, composed in reaction to the Irish War of Independence
Irish War of Independence
The Irish War of Independence , Anglo-Irish War, Black and Tan War, or Tan War was a guerrilla war mounted by the Irish Republican Army against the British government and its forces in Ireland. It began in January 1919, following the Irish Republic's declaration of independence. Both sides agreed...
, and it displays how O'Farrelly comes to terms with an Ireland far from her ideal. It portrays the dystopian nature of English power, as O'Farrelly sees it, juxtaposed with the light, spirituality, purity, truth, hope and unity of Ireland, which could enable its future salvation. The overall propagandist purpose of the collection is to offer hope to the demoralised Irish people. Áille an Domhain (1927), produced in a climate of relative stability, reveals a romantic utopianism, and celebrates a return to a harmonious rhythm of life, uninterrupted by the unnatural nature of war.