Story Spinners

Grandmamma’s Pockets was originally published in 1849 and although the Irish Famine is not directly mentioned, the text encourages English readers to assist rather than ignore their neighbours.

In Lewis Baumer's frontispiece for Meade's A Wild Irish Girl the main character, Patricia, wears purple, white, and green - an echo of the suffragettes' colour scheme.

Violet Finny
Illustrated by Gertrude D. Hammond
A Daughter of Erin
London, 1898



When translated into Irish, the title of Finny’s book is ‘Iníon na hÉireann’. ‘Inghinidhe na hÉireann’ (Daughters of Ireland) would later become the name of the Irish nationalist women’s group founded and led by Maud Gonne in 1900. The cover art by Gertrude D. Hammond depicts a woman wearing the colours of the Women’s Social and Political Union – green, white and purple.

OLS POL 1258 no.1

Violet Russell
Illustrated by Beatrice Elvery
Heroes of the Dawn
Dublin, 1913

Also known as Lady Glenavy, Beatrice Elvery (1883-1970) was an illustrator, stained-glass artist, and sculptor. She attended the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art from the age of thirteen. She painted the above picture while living in Howth. Violet Russell and her husband George Russell (Æ) were actively involved in the Irish Cultural Revival.

OLS POL 5567

Lady Gregory
Illustrated by Margaret Gregory
The Golden Apple: A Play for Kiltartan Children
London, 1916


Lady Augusta Gregory (1852-1932) was an editor, author, playwright, and co-founder of the Abbey Theatre. Her daughter-in-law, Margaret Gregory (1884-1979), was a prolific artist in both ink and watercolour. The Golden Apple is a play written in the Kiltartan dialect, created by Lady Gregory to portray realistic Irish voices.

OLS POL 7557

Read more about this item on the NCCB database.

Ella Young
Illustrated by Maud Gonne
Celtic Wonder-Tales
Dublin, 1910


Ella Young (1867-1956) was an Irish poet and mythologist who later held a Chair in Irish Myth and Folklore at the University of California Berkeley. Born in England, Maud Gonne (1866-1953) was a suffragette and Irish revolutionary who founded Inghinidhe na hÉireann (Daughters of Ireland) in 1900. In a 1949 speech, Gonne pointed to the continued need for Irish girls to fight for equality, remarking - ‘Irish girls of today, don’t be flappers. Do your work for your country as Inghinidhe na hÉireann did.’

80.e.73

Listen to Maud Gonne's advice for Irish girls.

Mary Lavin
Illustrated by Edward Ardizzone
The Second Best Children in the World (1972)

Mary Lavin (1912-1996) is one of Ireland’s most celebrated short-story writers and novelists. The Second Best Children in the World follows the adventures of three siblings as they travel around the world. Her other story for children is A Likely Story (1957). Edward Ardizzone (1900-1979) was an English illustrator and in 1957 was awarded the first Kate Greenaway Medal for the best illustrated children’s book that year.

On this page, Ardizzone's illustration complements Lavin's words, showing the mother hard at work in the kitchen. Lavin's text notes that "she never had time to play" because she works so hard.

OLS L-4-559

Eileen O’Faolain
Illustrated by Trefor Jones
An Circín Dubh (1948)

Though described by her daughter as “stoical and dignified and secretive”, the stories written by Cork-born revolutionary Eileen O’Faolain (1902-1988) are warm and often humorous.

97.q.49

An Circín Dubh (The Little Black Hen), translated by Brighid Ní Loingsigh, is a story about a changeling who takes the form of a hen, and is typical of O’Faolain’s fairy stories for children.

Trefor Jones' illustration shows an old woman in a long dark dress, apron with pockets, headscarf, and a shawl. This old-fashioned outfit lends an air of tradition to O'Faolain's new fairy story.

Maura Laverty
Illustrated by Barry Castle
The Cottage in the Bog (1992)

Maura Laverty (1907-1966) was a journalist, broadcaster, writer of cookery books, novels, children’s books and wrote Ireland’s first soap opera, ‘Tolka Row’. In the 1940s - according to Laverty - two of her novels were banned for exposing the dreadful conditions of poor Irish families. This edition of her classic text, originally published in 1945, is illustrated by her daughter, Barry Castle (1935-2006).

Read more about Maura Laverty on the NCCB database.

PL-184-905

PD Linín (Róisín Bean Mhic Dhonnchadh)
Illustrated by A. Murray Hayden
Maidhc
Galway, 1957

A foreign diplomat and one of the co-founders of the Irish-language literary magazine Comhar, PD Linín wrote a series of four children's novels in the Irish language about a naughty yet good-natured schoolboy named Maidhc. Reminiscent of Richmal Crompton's Just William series, each novel features the adventures of Maidhc as he grows up in Rathmines with his three best friends, one of whom is a girl named Nuala. The fourth and final Maidhc novel was published in 1968 in the year of Linín's untimely death in New York City.

S & D 35:1

Mulholland's embrace of Victorian values is reflected in Naughty Miss Bunny, a moral tale featuring the teaching and learning between a spoiled girl and her governess.

Siobhán Ní Shúilleabháin
Triúr Againn
Dublin, 1955

Born in Baile an Fheirtéaraigh in the West Kerry Gaeltacht, Siobhán Ní Shúilleabháin (1928-2013) was a respected and prolific author of Irish-language novels, short stories, poems and plays for adults, but she also wrote for children. Triúr Againn, from 1955, is about three teenage girls solving a mystery which unfolds as they return for another year at their boarding school, Coláiste Ghobnatan. Ní Shuilleabháin's fictional boarding school is clearly based upon Coláiste Íde in the West Kerry Gaeltacht, where she lived and studied during her own teenage years.

S & D 26:1

Eilís Dillon
The Island of Ghosts (1990)

A key figure in Irish literature, Eilís Dillon (1920-1994) wrote nearly 40 children’s books. Her adventure stories are characterised by the tension between tradition and progress, and by a rich sense of place. In The Island of Ghosts, two girls enact the daring rescue of their brothers who have been kidnapped. Dillon began her career as a children's author by writing books in Irish, the first being An Choill Bheo (1948).

The Island of Ghosts begins as a typical boys' adventure story but when two boys are kidnapped it is their sisters, Barbara and Cait, who take charge and set out to rescue them.

PB-94-132

Sophia Rosamond Praegar
The Young Stamp-Collectors (1985)

Irish artist and suffragette Sophia Rosamond Praeger (1867-1954) was a member of the London-based women artists' organization, the Suffrage Atelier. She wrote and illustrated twenty children’s books, including The Young Stamp-Collectors (1985).

OLS X-3-751

The Young Stamp-Collectors is considered one of Praegar's best works. It was originally rejected by her publishers and was only published over thirty years after her death by her good friend Godfrey Vinycomb.

Bríd Mahon
The Search for the Tinker Chief (1968)


Bríd Mahon (1922-2008) joined the Irish Folklore Commission in 1949, then taught in the Department of Irish Folklore at University College Dublin. A prolific writer, her works for children are heavily influenced by Irish folklore. The Tinker Chief was hugely popular and was optioned by Disney. Mahon uses the word ‘tinker’, an outmoded term now offensive, to refer to members of the travelling community.

194.u.3

Patricia Lynch
Orla of the Burren (1970)

Patricia Lynch (c. 1894-1972) was a prominent activist in the suffrage movement, who spoke at rallies and even travelled to Dublin to report first-hand on the events of the 1916 Easter Rising for The Worker’s Dreadnought. She moved in radical circles and was friends with Maud Gonne, Constance Markievicz, Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington, and with the Fabian writer, Edith Nesbit. In her autobiography, Lynch acknowledges the influence of an older writer, Miss Carmichael, who advised her to "learn shorthand and typewriting. With them and a good knowledge of English, a girl can go through the world."

JP 2019

A child reader - maybe Annie Faires herself - has coloured in the illustration in this copy of Letts' The Story-Spinner. These drawings give us clues to the way child readers interacted with their books.