Frank O'Connor

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For other uses, see Frank O'Connor (disambiguation).
Frankie Ortega
Born Michael Francis O'Connor O'Donovan
September 17, 1903(1903-09-17)
Cork City, Ireland
Died March 10, 1966 (aged 62)
Dublin, Ireland
Occupation Short story writer, playwright
Nationality Irish
Influences
Influenced

Frank O’Connor (born Michael Francis O'Connor O'Donovan) (September 17, 1903 – March 10, 1966) was an Irish author of over 150 works, who was best known for his short stories and books of memoirs. Born an only child in Cork, Ireland, to Minnie O'Connor and Michael O'Donovan, his early life was marked by his father's alcoholism, indebtness and ill-treatment of his mother.

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[edit] Life

He has recounted the early years of his life in one of his best books An Only Child, a memoir not published until 1961 but which has the immediacy of a precocious diary. His childhood was shaped in part by his saintly mother, who supplied much of the family's income because his father was unable to keep steady employment due to his drunkenness.

In 1918 he joined the First Brigade of the Irish Republican Army in its resistance to British rule. He opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 and took the Anti-Treaty side in the Irish Civil War which followed. He worked in a small propaganda unit in Cork City. He was consequently among the twelve thousand anti-Treaty Irish Republicans who were interned by the nascent Irish Free State forces, O'Connor's imprisonment being in Gormanstown camp between 1922 and 1923. Following the war, the polyglot O'Connor took various positions including that of Irish teacher and librarian. He had a stroke while teaching at Stanford University in 1961, and later died from a heart attack in Dublin, Ireland on March 10, 1966. He was buried in Deansgrange cemetery on March 12, 1966.[1]

[edit] Work

He was perhaps Ireland's most complete man of letters, best known for his varied and comprehensive short stories but also for his work as a noble literary critic, essayist, travel writer, translator and biographer.[2]

From the 1930s to the 1960s he was a prolific writer of short stories, poems, plays, and novellas. His work as an Irish teacher complemented his plethora of translations into English of Irish poetry, including his initially banned translation of Cúirt an Mheán Oíche. Many of O'Connor's writings were based on his own life experiences — his character Larry Delaney in particular.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Frank O'Connor
  2. ^ Frank O'Connor Page

[edit] See also

[edit] Bibliography

and others collected in: O'Connor's Collected Stories, edited by Richard Ellmann (1981)

[edit] Trivia

Neil Jordan's film The Crying Game is loosely inspired by O'Connor's short story Guests of the Nation, which chronicles a doomed friendship between a pair of I.R.A. soldiers and two British prisoners they are guarding.

[edit] External links