Maeve Binchy, page 25
Finally, both Maeve’s brother and her literary agent quite independently described her as a swan gliding apparently effortlessly across a pool, while underneath everything is going like the clappers. And Queen Maeve was commonly identified with the swan, even sometimes taking a swan’s form in myth.
Over the millennia the Sligo people have remained highly protective of the tomb of Medb, resisting its excavation. It is just about the oldest thing of Irish Tradition we have.
APPENDIX A
The issuing of the ‘Proclamation of the Republic’ by Patrick Pearse in 1916 marked the beginning of modern Irish history.
IRISHMEN AND IRISHWOMEN: In the name of God and of the dead generations from which she receives her old tradition of nationhood, Ireland, through us, summons her children to her flag and strikes for her freedom.
Having organised and trained her manhood through her secret revolutionary organisation, the Irish Republican Brotherhood, and through her open military organisations, the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army, having patiently perfected her discipline, having resolutely waited for the right moment to reveal itself, she now seizes that moment, and, supported by her exiled children in America and by gallant allies in Europe, but relying in the first on her own strength, she strikes in full confidence of victory.
We declare the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland, and to the unfettered control of Irish destinies, to be sovereign and indefeasible. The long usurpation of that right by a foreign people and government has not extinguished the right, nor can it ever be extinguished except by the destruction of the Irish people. In every generation the Irish people have asserted their right to national freedom and sovereignty: six times during the past three hundred years they have asserted it in arms. Standing on that fundamental right and again asserting it in arms in the face of the world, we hereby proclaim the Irish Republic as a Sovereign Independent State, and we pledge our lives and the lives of our comrades-in-arms to the cause of its freedom, of its welfare, and its exaltation among the nations.
The Irish Republic is entitled to, and hereby claims, the allegiance of every Irishman and Irishwoman. The Republic guarantees religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens, and declares its resolve to pursue the happiness and prosperity of the whole nation and of all its parts, cherishing all the children of the nation equally, and oblivious of the differences carefully fostered by an alien government, which have divided a minority from the majority in the past.
Until our arms have brought the opportune moment for the establishment of a permanent National Government, representative of the whole people of Ireland and elected by the suffrages of all her men and women, the Provisional Government, hereby constituted, will administer the civil and military affairs of the Republic in trust for the people.
We place the cause of the Irish Republic under the protection of the Most High God, Whose blessing we invoke upon our arms, and we pray that no one who serves that cause will dishonour it by cowardice, inhumanity, or rapine. In this supreme hour the Irish nation must, by its valour and discipline and by the readiness of its children to sacrifice themselves for the common good, prove itself worthy of the august destiny to which it is called.
APPENDIX B
‘The Ballad of Kevin Barry’
In Mountjoy jail one Monday morning
High upon the gallows tree,
Kevin Barry gave his young life
For the cause of liberty.
Just a lad of eighteen summers,
Still there’s no one can deny,
As he walked to death that morning,
He proudly held his head on high.
[Chorus]
Shoot me like an Irish soldier.
Do not hang me like a dog,
For I fought to free old Ireland
On that still September morn.
All around the little bakery
Where we fought them hand to hand,
Shoot me like an Irish soldier,
For I fought to free Ireland.
Just before he faced the hangman,
In his dreary prison cell,
British soldiers tortured Barry,
Just because he would not tell
The names of his brave comrades,
And other things they wished to know.
‘Turn informer or we’ll kill you.’
Kevin Barry answered ‘No’.
Proudly standing to attention
While he bade his last farewell
To his broken-hearted mother
Whose grief no one can tell.
For the cause he proudly cherished
This sad parting had to be
Then to death walked softly smiling
That old Ireland might be free.
Another martyr for old Ireland,
Another murder for the crown,
Whose brutal laws may kill the Irish,
But can’t keep their spirit down.
Lads like Barry are no cowards.
From the foe they will not fly.
Lads like Barry will free Ireland,
For her sake they’ll live and die.
APPENDIX C
Brehon law arose through the roots of society as it were by osmosis, quite unlike the rule of the Jesuit Society of Jesus, which was imposed – top down – from Rome. It differs in significant ways to canon law, the law of the Catholic Church. For example, Brehon law allows polygyny (more than one lover) and divorce. It is also more enlightened in its treatment of women. By the eighth century, although Irish society was male dominated, it allowed women greater freedom, independence and rights to property than any other European society. Divorce was provided for on a number of grounds and property was divided fairly according to the contribution each spouse made. A husband was legally permitted to hit his wife to ‘correct’ her, but if the blow left a mark she was entitled to compensation and could, if she wished, divorce him.
There are also many differences between Brehon law and British law, which the British government had for centuries been imposing upon the Irish people. Capital punishment, for example, was not permitted.
TIMELINE
1858 William Patrick Binchy, Maeve’s grandfather, is born.
1909 William Francis Binchy, Maeve’s father, is born at Charleville, County Cork.
1910 Maureen Blackmore, Maeve’s mother, is born in Cregg by Carrick-on-Suir, County Tipperary.
1911 Michael Binchy (17), James Binchy (14), Joseph Binchy (11), Owen S. Binchy (14) and Daniel A. Binchy (11) attend Clongowes Wood Jesuit College for boys in Balraheen, County Kildare, with John Charles McQuaid.
1916 On Easter Monday, the Irish Volunteers, the Irish Citizen Army of James Connolly and 200 members of another revolutionary body, Cumann na mBan, seize certain locations in Dublin, and at a key moment Patrick Pearse reads the famous Proclamation on behalf of the Military Council of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, outside the Post Office in Sackville Street. The leaders are executed by the British.
1918 Daniel A. Binchy takes up a place at University College Dublin and becomes active in the student union.
1920 Kevin Barry, a nineteen-year-old undergraduate at University College Dublin reading Medicine, is executed by hanging at Mountjoy Prison for his part in an action which resulted in the deaths of three British soldiers.
1921 Frank Flood, a nineteen-year-old scholarship boy at University College Dublin reading Engineering, is arrested while attacking the Dublin Metropolitan Police at Drumcondra, charged with high treason and executed by hanging at Mountjoy Prison.
1924 Daniel A. Binchy is appointed Professor of Legal History and Jurisprudence at University College Dublin.
1925 William Francis Binchy, Maeve’s father, goes up to University College Dublin to read English Language and Literature.
1928 William Francis Binchy graduates from University College Dublin with First Class Honours.
1938 William Francis Binchy, by now a barrister, marries Maureen Blackmore on 29 March at the Catholic church of Dún Laoghaire.
1939 Anne Maeve Binchy (Maeve) is born on 28 May at 26 Upper Pembroke Street, Dublin 2. The family goes to live at Beechgrove, Lower Glenageary Road, close to Dalkey.
1940 Daniel W. J. Binchy, Maeve’s first cousin, is born.
1942 Joan M. Binchy, Maeve’s sister, is born.
1944 Irene (Renie) A. Binchy, Maeve’s sister, is born.
1945 Maeve attends St Anne’s Private School nursery at 36 Clarinda Park East.
1947 William F. T. Binchy, Maeve’s brother, is born.
1947 The Holy Child, a Jesuit convent, opens at Killiney, at the invitation of Archbishop John Charles McQuaid.
1949 Last tram to leave Dalkey.
1949 First English translation of Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre.
1950 Maeve attends the Holy Child Convent in Killiney. This is the model of the convent school attended by Aisling O’Connor and Elizabeth White in Maeve’s first novel, Light a Penny Candle.
1952 Maeve’s family move to a large house called Eastmount, on the Knocknacree Road in Dalkey.
1953 First English publication of The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir.
1953 Maeve’s first date, an invitation to the cinema at Dún Laoghaire, to see Roman Holiday, starring Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn. Hepburn won an Academy Award. Maeve’s date was a disaster.
1956 Maeve takes her Leaving Certificate at seventeen, and leaves the Holy Child Killiney for university.
1956 Maeve goes up to University College Dublin to read Law, but swiftly changes course to read English, French and History, with Latin her fourth subject, sitting First Arts in these subjects in 1957, then focusing just on French and History for her honours degree, taken in 1959.
1956 First English edition published of Being and Nothingness by Jean-Paul Sartre.
1959 Maeve sits her finals at University College Dublin.
1959 Maeve accepts a summer-term teaching position at St Leonards-on-Sea on the south coast of England.
1960 Maeve studies for a DipEd at University College.
1960 Maeve teaches at a school in Cork. On the train home the following year she has her first taste of alcohol. She is twenty-two.
1961 Maeve begins teaching Latin and history to girls from twelve to eighteen at a lay Catholic girls’ school in Dublin, Miss Meredith’s on Pembroke Road, close by the canal in Dublin 4. Three days a week she teaches conversational French to children at Zion Schools in Dublin’s Jewish quarter.
1963 The parents of children Maeve is teaching at the Jewish school give her a trip to Israel as a present. She has no money, so she goes and works in Kibbutz Zikim in Ashkelon, Israel with her best friend, Philippa O’Keefe. Maeve also spends the following two summers (1964 and 1965) at the kibbutz.
1963 Maeve loses her Christian faith while in Israel. Returns home to find that she is a published writer. Her father had sold her letters to the Irish Independent.
1965 Travels to Tunisia, Sardinia, Crete…
1966 Begins freelancing as a journalist. Feminism articles, backs the convent schools.
1966 Travels widely over the next two years – Singapore, Cyprus, La Rochelle, Portugal, Yugoslavia, Turkey, the Philippines, Russia, India, Greece, Canaries, Austria, Tangier, Spain, Scotland, Lourdes, Bulgaria, Agadir and Palestine.
1967 Maureen, Maeve’s mother, dies aged fifty-seven of cancer at St Luke’s Hospital, Rathgar, Dublin.
1967 Maeve’s first visit to Cumann Merriman, which aims to promote interest in all aspects of Irish culture. The Merriman Summer School is held during the last week of August in the district of Thomond, Co. Clare. Current patron is the poet, writer and Nobel Prize winner Seamus Heaney.
1967 Maeve writes article for the Irish Times entitled ‘I just love being a teacher’.
1968 Maeve gives up teaching and is hired as Women’s Editor of the Irish Times.
1968 Maeve becomes a frequent contributor to RTÉ Radio.
1968 Maeve’s sister Renie qualifies as a doctor.
1968 Maeve’s brother William Binchy becomes a barrister-at-law.
1970 Publication of The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer.
1970 The Irish Women’s Liberation movement is founded.
1970 Publication of My First Book by Maeve Binchy, a collection of her Irish Times articles.
1971 Maeve’s father dies at sixty-two. Maeve, absolutely bereft, sells the family house and moves to a flat in Dublin. Meets freelance BBC broadcaster Gordon Snell in London when she is there to do some work on Woman’s Hour.
1973 Maeve leaves Dublin for a job with the Irish Times in its London office, and to pursue her relationship with Gordon Snell.
1973 On 8 March, the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) conducts its first operation in England, planting four car bombs in London.
1973 On 14 November Maeve covers Princess Anne’s marriage to Captain Mark Phillips and causes a stir.
1974 Maeve covers the war in Cyprus after she and Gordon had holidayed there.
1974 Maeve follows the Welsh Nationalist Gwynfor Evans during his campaign to get back into Westminster.
1975 Maeve begins her ‘Inside London’ column.
1975 Maeve receives a letter from Joe Dowling from the Abbey Theatre, Peacock Stage, asking whether she’d ever thought of writing plays.
1976 27 March, a bomb placed by the Provisional IRA explodes in a litter bin at the top of an escalator in a crowded exhibition hall, Earl’s Court. 20,000 people were attending the Daily Mail Ideal Home Exhibition at the time. Seventy were injured, four people lost limbs.
1976 9 December, Maeve’s first play, End of Term, is produced by the Abbey Theatre. It is about three teachers in an Irish convent school as their lives are exposed by a devious schoolgirl.
1977 Maeve and Gordon Snell marry on 29 January at Hammersmith Register Office. They honeymoon in Australia.
1978 Maeve first collection of fictional short stories – Central Line – is published on 19 June.
1978 The sixth volume of Maeve’s uncle Daniel A. Binchy’s life’s work, Corpus Iuris Hibernici, is published.
1978 Deeply Regretted By, a screenplay written by Maeve in 1976, is broadcast on 28 December as part of RTÉ Television’s ‘Thursday Play Date’ series, with Louis Lentin producing. It wins a prize at the Prague Television Festival and two Jacob’s awards for Maeve Binchy and Donall Farmer. It is an account of a tragedy affecting a woman in London who discovers, on the death of her husband, that their married life was a lie. It first appeared as ‘Death in Kilburn’ in the Irish Times.
1979 Maeve’s play Half-Promised Land is produced by the Abbey Theatre, Peacock Stage, on 11 October. The play tells of two Irish schoolteachers, Sheila and Una, working on a kibbutz in Israel.
1980 Maeve’s second collection of fictional short stories – Victoria Line – is published.
1980 Maeve and Gordon spot Pollyvilla up for sale in Dalkey. They buy it.
1980 Ireland of the Welcomes play transmitted on ‘Thursday Playdate’, 16 October. Concerns the dream of an Irish emigrant to return and settle with his family in his native town.
1981 Century Publishing pay Maeve £5,000 advance for her first novel, Light a Penny Candle, and sell UK paperback rights for £52,000, the highest sum ever paid for a first novel commissioned by a British publisher. Maeve’s agent Christine Green sells US hardcover rights to Viking for $200,000.
1981 Maeve’s short-story collection Dublin 4 is published.
1982 Light a Penny Candle, which follows the friendship of two young women through two decades, is published and remains in the UK Top 10 for fifty-three weeks.
1982 Binchy’s Bakery in Charleville closes.
1983 Maeve’s short-story collection London Transports is published.
1984 Maeve’s linked story collection The Lilac Bus is published.
1983 William Binchy campaigns for the constitutional ban on abortion as an amendment to the Irish Constitution, successfully.
1985 Echoes, Maeve’s second novel, is published. It tells of the struggle of an impoverished young woman to escape a narrow-minded resort town.
1985 Founding of Philippa O’Keefe’s catering company, Lodge Catering, which becomes the model for Scarlet Feather in future novels.
1986 William Binchy campaigns against the introduction of divorce in Ireland (successfully in 1986, and unsuccessfully in 1995).
1987 Maeve’s novel Firefly Summer is published. It concerns an Irish-American who is forced to reconsider his misconceptions about Ireland when he goes there to live.
1988 Maeve’s novel Silver Wedding is published, the story of a couple celebrating their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary and the events that led them there.
