Book Launch of Gerald O’Donovan: A Life 1871-1942 by John F. Ryan

About the Book

Enlightening biography of a key figure in Irish literary history, based on rich archival material.

This biography of the novelist Gerald O’Donovan provides new insights into a range of important cultural moments in early twentieth-century Ireland. Based on an array of archival material, the book explores O’Donovan’s life as a Catholic priest in Loughrea, Co. Galway, before charting his abandonment of the priesthood and relocation to England, where he published six novels including Father Ralph (1913).

As a priest in Loughrea, Co. Galway,  Gerald O’Donovan was a very public figure in Irish life in several different areas. He was friendly with W. B. Yeats, Lady Gregory and George Moore and actively promoted the ‘Celtic Revival’. He was also a friend of Douglas Hyde and Sir Horace Plunkett and, for a number of years, he was a national figure in their respective organizations, the Gaelic League and the Co-operative Movement. After his marriage to Beryl Verschoyle, he moved to England and subsequently published six novels, the best-known and most controversial of which was Father Ralph (1913), a portrait of the artist as a priest. He also spent time working in the British Department of Propaganda under Lord Northcliffe, where H.G. Wells was one of his colleagues.

This biography of an important and strangely neglected figure allows us new insights into a whole range of interesting cultural moments in twentieth-century Irish life, including the beginnings of literary modernism, the flourishing of the Irish literary revival and the emergence of a dissident strand within the Catholic clergy. Based on a rich and previously untapped array of archival material in Ireland, Britain and the US, the book provides both a much-needed reassessment of O’Donovan’s work and also a history of Irish writing during those early decades of the twentieth century that saw the development of a new and powerful national literature.

Reviews of the Book:

‘[A] judicious, factual narrative of a fascinatingly original life… this will be the standard book on Gerald O’Donovan… a thing of wonder.’ Adrian Frazier, Irish Times

‘John F. Ryan has given us a fascinating, meticulously researched book that draws together many strands of a well filled life and throws light on all of them.’ Thomas O’Loughlin, The Irish Catholic

About the Author: John F. Ryan is an Independent scholar specialising in the life and works of Gerald O’Donovan.

About Dorothy Allen: Dorothy is an award-winning journalist, currently the London correspondent of Swiss magazine Tierwelt. She is a former BBC reporter, working in documentaries for television, (Brass Tacks; Panorama) and radio (File on Four). As a print journalist, she won a Feature Writer of the Year award while reporting for the Burton Daily Mail. She has also written a weekly television review column for The Tablet magazine. Dorothy is a former Vice Chair of the Irish Literary Society.

Gerald O’Donovan: A Life is published by Liverpool University Press