< contents

Answers to the Quiz

1 ) Queen Maeve. After a tiff with her husband as to which of them was the wealthier, she attempted to acquire the Brown Bull of Cooley, Co. Louth. This sparked a bloody inter- provincial war in which Cú Uladh gained fame and later killed his half-brother , Ferdia , in single combat at Ardee. Many other exciting events are reported in the Fenian Cycle, which is one of the great works of early Irish literature. Details of Maeve's own involvement are covered in the Tain saga .

2 ) Lady Augusta Gregory. The wife of a landowner, she collected vast amounts of folklore among the Co. Galway country people. She produced The Kiltartan History, wrote many one-act plays, and gave lodging free of charge to W. B Yeats when he was a poor and hungry young poet. More than anyone else, she steered the establishment of the Abbey Theatre, Dublin. Her home, Coole, was a haven for many of the early writers of the Irish Renaisance, including Shaw, O'Casey, AE, and others. Cecil Woodham-Smith wrote her biography in 1962, which was a best-seller.

3 ) Dervorgilla. She was the wife of O'Rourke, Prince of Breffney. Her husband went to Lough Derg on a pilgrimage. When he returned to Dromahaire she had vanished. The National Poet, Thomas Moore later wrote a moving song about the sad occurrence, " The Valley lay smiling before me". She had eloped with the King of Leinster, Dermott Mac Murrough . Dervorgilla, and her new consort, fled to England for safety. Nudged by this event, Henry II seized the chance to invade Ireland. He sent Strongbow to Wexford. Devorgilla has always been blamed for bringing the English to Ireland. She said that O'Rourke was a difficult man to live with, despite his piety.

4 ) Anne Devlin. She was a servant girl in the house of Robert Emmett (1778-1803 ). She was also the niece of Michael Dwyer, one of the famed United Irishmen in Co. Wicklow.. The Redcoats brutally beat her and submitted her to torture . They wanted her to disclose where Emmett was hiding. She refused to do so, despite her ordeal. Dr. Madden, the historian of the Rebellion of 1798, searched for her later, and found her in the 1840's . She was living in the greatest poverty. He was able to relieve somewhat her plight. She is interred in Glasnevin.

5 ) Maude Gonne McBride. Of English stock and birth, she was won over to Irish Nationalism by the plight of evicted people in the Land War. Active in Home Rule activities afterwards, she was widely admired .Yeats who wrote plays for her, "The Countess Cathleen" and "Cathleen Ni Houlachan". Many of the poems of Yeats are inspired by her. She married John McBride, a veteran of an Irish Brigade in the Boer War. He was executed in 1916 . She became an extreme, but amiable, Republican. A book, "A Servant of the Queen", covers much of her early life. Her son , Sean McBride , was active in politics in Ireland and in the U.N.

6 ) Constance Gore-Booth. Born in Co. Sligo of Protestant ascendancy stock, she is featured in some of the Yeats poetry. Sympathetic to the poor, she was attracted to Nationalism. Among many other activities, she trained the Fianna. She fought beside Michael Mallin in St. Stephen's Green in 1916 and was imprisoned in Aylesbury Jail . Chicago May, the American gangsteress , happened to be her fellow- prisoner there. In 1918 she became the first lady ever elected to the House of Commons and in the Sinn Féin interest. By then she had married and was Countess Markiewiez. On leaving parliamentary politics, she laboured generously among the Dublin poor until her death in 1927.

7 ) Deirdre. She is often seen as the Helen of Ireland , and the drama ( 1906 ) by John M Synge " Deirdre of the Sorrows ", shows why. One of the great heroines of the world , the play is said to be based on events in Ireland in the 4thCentury in which this remarkable Irishwoman was involved.
The story is said to equal what is best in Greek drama. It was the final play that Synge wrote before his early death in 1907 . He died before he had an opportunity of revising it.

8 ) Kitty O'Shea. (1846-1921 ). She was the English wife of Capt. O'Shea, M.P., who was an important member of Parnell's team in the Home Rule campaign. . She, and Parnell , had formed a secret alliance. When news of this broke, after Capt. O'Shea sued for divorce, the ensuing scandal split the Nationalist Party and the Irish electorate. Great bitterness raged. No woman, since Devorgilla, had a more profound and widespread effect on Ireland's quest for freedom than Mrs. O'Shea .

9 ) Niamh Chinn Óir. One morning , Oisín , the warrior son of Fionn MacCool , went for a stroll . A richly-harnessed horse trotted up with an enticing wench in the saddle. She motioned to Oisín to take a seat on the steed behind her. In a moment of weakness, perhaps, he complied. Instantly, she charged off with her captive to Tír-na-nOg, the Land of Eternal Youth . This place became the Irish Valhalla, where all the good folk aimed to go one day . After 300 years there, Oisín became homesick . The details of his return to Ireland , and his life with Niamh , are given in Michael Comyn's fine poem "Laoi Oisín ar Thír- na- nOg".

10 ) Maria Edgeworth .Born in her grandparents house in Oxfordshire, she was of an old Anglo-Irish family . Her father, Richard , was a patriotic member of the Irish Parliament in Dublin. High up in the Irish Volunteers, he later voted against the Union with Great Britian in 1801. The family estate was in Co. Longford. She wrote many novels, "Castlerackrent", being the best known today. Critics claim that she wrote the first regional novel. In this she is said to have influenced Scott, Fennimore Cooper, and Turgenev. Scott visited her in Edgeworthstown . Her "Castlerackrent" is considered also to be the first realistic Irish novel and it has had an influence on George Moore and Joyce. She is buried in the local parish graveyard .

Table of contents