Follow Us
Like Us
Historical records matching Seán Ó Faoláin
view all
Immediate Family
-
wife -
daughter
-
-
father -
mother
-
brother
-
brother
About Seán Ó Faoláin
Seán Ó Faoláin was an Irish short story writer and educator. He wrote his first stories in the 1920s, eventually completing 90 stories over a period of 60 years. He was elected Saoi of Aosdána in 1986.
Per The New York Times:
Mr. O'Faolain [sic], whose original name was John Francis Whelan, was born in County Cork on Feb. 22, 1900, the son of a constable. "From an early age he was inhibited," Gordon Henderson wrote in his Dictionary of Literary Biography, by "his father's unquestioning respect for authority, his mother's excessive piety, and the preoccupation both had with rising above their peasant-farmer origins."
Shortly after entering University College, Cork, Ó Faoláin joined the Irish Volunteers. He fought in the War of Independence. During the Irish Civil War he served as Censor for the Cork Examiner and as publicity director for the IRA. After the Republican loss, he received M.A. degrees from the National University of Ireland and from Harvard University where he studied for 3 years. He was a Commonwealth Fellow from 1926 to 1928; and was a Harvard Fellow from 1928 to 1929. From 1929 to 1933 he lectured at the Catholic college, St Mary's College, at Strawberry Hill in Middlesex, England, during which period he wrote his first two books.
Ó Faoláin afterwards returned to his native Ireland. He published novels; short stories; biographies; travel books; translations; literary criticism—including one of the rare full-length studies of the short story: The Short Story (1948). He also wrote a cultural history, The Irish, in 1947. He served as director of the Arts Council of Ireland from 1956 to 1959, and from 1940 to 1990 was a founder member and editor of the Irish literary periodical The Bell.
Ó Faoláin married Eileen Gould, a children's writer, in 1929. Eileen published several books of Irish folk-tales. They had two children: Julia (b. 1932), who became a Booker-nominated novelist and short-story writer; and Stephen (b. 1938).
Sources
- Flint, Peter B. "Sean O'Faolain, an Irish Master Of the Short Story, Is Dead at 91." The New York Times, published 22 April 1991. < http://www.nytimes.com/1991/04/22/obituaries/sean-o-faolain-an-iris... > Accessed 23 August 2017.
- "Seán Ó Faoláin." Wikipedia, revision of 26 April 2017. < https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sean_O_Faolain > Accessed 23 August 2017.
- "Seán O’Faoláin: 1900-1991." Ricorso. < http://www.ricorso.net/rx/az-data/authors/o/OFaolain_S/life.htm > Accessed 23 August 2017.
view all
Seán Ó Faoláin's Timeline
| 1900 |
February 22, 1900
|
16 Half Moon Street, Cork, County Cork, Munster, Ireland
|
|
| 1932 |
June 6, 1932
|
London, Greater London, England, United Kingdom
|
|
| 1938 |
1938
|
||
| 1991 |
April 20, 1991
Age 91
|
Dublin, County Dublin, Leinster, Ireland
|