Una Troy

Una Troy Walsh (1913–1993) was an Irish novelist and playwright who wrote under the names Elizabeth Connor and Una Troy.[1]

Troy was born in Fermoy, County Cork, Ireland in either May 21, 1910 [2] or 1913.[3][4] She married (1931) Dr. Joe Walsh of Bonmahon who served as physician to the I.R.A. West Waterford Flying Column under Commandant George Lennon of Dungarvan. He is buried adjacent to the Republican Plot in Kilrossanty, Co. Waterford. Her sister in law, Mai (Walsh), was the wife of renowned Irish artist Sean Keating RHA of Rathfarnham, Co. Dublin.

Writing under the pen name of "Elizabeth Connor", she began her career in 1936 with the publication of the novel Mount Prospect which was banned in the Irish Free State.[5] Adapted as a play, it garnered the Shaw Prize for new playwrights and was performed on the Abbey stage in 1940. Three subsequent plays were also performed at the Abbey in the 1940s.[6] In 1938, Dead Star's Light was published. The protagonist, John Davern, was based on the character of IRA revolutionary idealist George Lennon of West Waterford. While not banned, it did elicit censure from her Sts. Peter and Paul Clonmel parish priest,[7] who denied membership in his congregation to the author, husband and daughter. Dead Star's Light, performed on the Abbey stage in 1947 as The Dark Road, noted the Davern/Lennon character as a "gun man, agitator, anti-cleric and a communist".

Writing as Una Troy in the 1950s, her 1955 novel, We Are Seven, was adapted as a film in 1958 entitled She Didn't Say No! for which she was the co-writer. The film, with its portrayal of illegitimacy, was not released in Ireland until shown in 2001 at the Irish Film Archive. In the post World War II period she wrote fifteen novels.

She died in 1993 in Bonmahon, County Waterford. Many of her papers, collected by Ann Butler of Cambridge, Massachusetts, are to be found as the "Una Troy Papers" at the National Library of Ireland.

References

  1. ↑ O'Reilly, Terence (2009). Rebel Heart: George Lennon: Flying Column Commander. Mercier Press Ltd,. p. 220. ISBN 978-1-85635-649-7. Retrieved 2011-12-16.
  2. ↑ http://www.nli.ie/pdfs/mss%20lists/troyu.pdf
  3. ↑ Deane, Seamus; Angela Bourke; Andrew Carpenter; Jonathan Williams (2002). Angela Bourke, ed. The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing. Irish Women's Writing and Traditions 4. NYU Press. p. 600. ISBN 978-0-8147-9906-2. Retrieved 2011-12-16.
  4. ↑ http://www.nli.ie/pdfs/mss%20lists/troyu.pdf
  5. ↑ Connolly, Claire (Spring 2010). "Four Nations Feminism: Una Troy and Menna Gallie". UCDscholarcast. p. 3. Retrieved 16 December 2011.
  6. ↑ Leland, Mary (1999). The lie of the land: journeys through literary Cork. Cork University Press. p. 161. ISBN 978-1-85918-231-4. Retrieved 2011-12-16.
  7. ↑ Rebel Heart p223

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