Welcome to another entry in a series on Irish writers of the fantastic. Swan River Press takes us on a tour through Ireland’s fantasy heritage.
“Any whose business brought them to the attic looked in the corners warily, while they stayed, but the servants did not like to go there alone.”
– “The First Wife” (1895)
Katherine Tynan (1859-1931) was born in South Richmond Street, Dublin on 23 January 1859. She was raised in Whitehall, the family home in Clondalkin. Her literary salon there attracted notables such as the mystical poet A.E. and W. B. Yeats, the latter with whom she formed a lifelong friendship. With encouragement from Rosa Mulholland, Tynan became a prolific writer, authoring more than a hundred novels in addition to memoirs, journalism, numerous volumes of poetry, and a tribute to her friend Dora Sigerson Shorter in The Sad Years (1918). Her works deal with nationalism, feminism, and Catholicism—Yeats declared of her early collection Shamrocks (1887) that “in finding her nationality, she has also found herself”. Tynan died in Wimbledon, London on 2 April 1931. Her short stories, often featuring sketches of Irish life, can be found in An Isle in the Water (1895), Men and Maids (1908), and Lovers’ Meeting (1914).
Read Katherine Tynan at Project Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/7598
