Liam O'Flaherty is one of the most significant and important modern Anglo-Irish authors. His novels have not been met with much critical analysis over the last forty years because he stopped publishing work in 1956. Both his novels and his short stories define Anglo-Irish literature in that his themes stem from his experiences growing up in a poverty-stricken society on the island of Aran; his naturalistic, mystical, romantic, and realistic styles were also defined by his experiences in his native Ireland.
Liam O'Flaherty was born in the village of Gort na gCapall, Inishmore, on 28 August 1896. Inishmore is the most northern of the Aran Islands. Gort na gCapall means "The Field of the Horses" and is true to its meaning. The entire area of Inishmore was bleak and harsh. The treeless, flat, rocky ground was almost too shallow for any crops to grow. Such a harsh land affected O'Flaherty immensely:
I was born on a storm-swept rock and hate the soft growth of sunbaked lands where there is no frost in men's bones. Swift thoughts, and the swift flight of ravenous birds, and the squeal of terror of hunted animals to me reality. I have seen the leaping salmon fly before the salmon whale, and I have seen the sated buck horn his mate, and the wanderer leave his wife in search of fresh bosoms with the fire of joy in his eye. For me, that man is great who is his own God and the slave man is a harnessed lout who jingles the coppers of his hire in the scales of mediocrity (Doyle 18).
The area of Inishmore was also quite poverty stricken. Poverty, famine, and death were something that the people of Gort na gCapall dealt with every day (Sheeran 15). The people struggled with feeding large families on little or no food. Also, the people had little means of earning money or removing themselves from the poverty. The common occupations in Gort na gCapall were as landowners, such as Liam O'Flaherty's father, and fisherman. Another common practice was to haul sand from the shore in order to mix it with seaweed and silt in order to turn "bare rock into tillage land" (Sheeran 15). O'Flaherty had both an admiration and hatred for the poor. They give him both a romantic quality in describing the plight of the common man but also "frequently fill him with misanthropy" (Doyle 18). Among the people of Gort na gCapall were many orphans and widows. Because of the hard life, many people died early, either from starvation, disease, or drowning in the ocean in an attempt to catch fish to feed the family. O'Flaherty describes the life in such a harsh place as:
terribly intense. There, not only extreme poverty, but the very position of the island foster in the human mind those devils of suspicion and resentment which make ingratitude seem man's strongest vice. The surrounding sea, constantly stirred into fury by storms that cut off communication with the mainland, always maintains in the mind of the inhabitants a restless anxiety, which has a strong bearing on character, sharpening the wits and heightening the energy, but at the same time producing a violent instability of temperament (Doyle 17).
A somewhat different description of the Aran Islands was given by John Millington Synge in The Aran Islands. This work is important in that it was a sore point for O'Flaherty. The description provided in The Aran Islands, written at intervals between 1898 and 1901, was very different than the life O'Flaherty actually led. The book provided an inspiration for O'Flaherty later on in life to give a proper description.
The mist and fog of Inishmore also proved to be a defining factor for the young O'Flaherty. As a youngster, he was fascinated with the mystical qualities present in the melancholy atmosphere of his homeland. He was enthralled by the "mystical dreams and mystical terrors" of the land (Doyle 18). He became preoccupied with ancient ruins in the form of the "numerous prehistoric pagan and early Christian monuments" of Aran (Doyle 18). O'Flaherty, through his mystical fascination, became a brooding youngster who undertook "gloomy meditation" (Doyle 18). The enjoyment of the mystical pasts of Ireland also furthered a naturalistic movement inside of O'Flaherty, which is quite evident in his short stories.
O'Flaherty does not deal with the harsh life in Inishmore for a great deal in his autobiographies because of a sense of family pride (Sheeran 22). His own upbringing is only a source of experiences on which to create a greater imagination and draw a picture in his novels and short stories.
Liam O'Flaherty's parents were Michael Flaherty and Margaret Ganly. Michael Flaherty married Margaret Ganly on 20 February 1872. The bride was only sixteen-and-a-half years old while the groom was twenty-six. As was the popular method in those days, the couple determines they are going to "run away." The groom asks a friend or relation to borrow a house in order to harbor the "running away couple." The couple then celebrate by drinking about a gallon of whisky and spending the night. The next morning, the friend or relation whose house the couple is borrowing goes to each respective family and informs the family of the "runaway." The girl is then brought to her family and remains there until the marriage (Sheeran 20). The marriages were often not well thought out, as was the case of O'Flaherty's parents. Margaret Ganly was not even literate at the time and signed the Marriage Register with 'her mark,' a sign, commonly an "X," of an illiterate person in Ireland (Sheeran 20).
The first literary attempt made by O'Flaherty took place at age seven with a story about the murder of a peasant woman by her husband:
The wife brought him cold tea for dinner to the field. He murdered her with a spade and then tried to bury her in the fosse, or furrow, between two ridges. The point of the story, I remember, was the man's difficulty in getting the woman, who was very large, to fit into the fosse. The schoolmaster was horrified and thrashed me (O'Flaherty qtd. in Sheeran 56).
In 1908, a priest of the Holy Ghost order from Rockwell College in County Tipperary came to the Aran Islands in order to recruit some youngsters for the priesthood (Doyle 18). O'Flaherty was at the top of his class and showed imagination in his unusual brooding manner. He was therefore pointed out to the priest that further educational opportunities should be given to him. His education at Rockwell College would be practically free. Receiving a decent education was one of the only ways to escape the poverty of Inishmore (Sheeran 58). Rockwell was a "curious mixture of an English public school, a French lycee, and a monastery" (Sheeran 59). It was at Rockwell that, in retrospect, O'Flaherty grew an aversion to Catholicism. O'Flaherty refused to take steps toward ordination and transferred to Blackrock College in 1913. While at Blackrock, two factors emerged in the life of O'Flaherty. First of all, O'Flaherty became a political rebel. He organized a corps of Republican Volunteers. Also, O'Flaherty became increasingly anticlerical. He initially felt that the Catholic Church was hypocritical in that the Church was too wealthy while the people were too poor. At this point in his life, O'Flaherty didn't believe in the dogma of the Church. He hated the "religious authoritarianism and puritanism which were commonplace in Ireland" that were based on the dogma of the Catholic Church, which he felt were simply superstitions (Doyle 20).
O'Flaherty still did well enough at Blackrock to receive an entrance scholarship to University College, Dublin. He again, despite his retrospective aversion to the Church, contemplated the priesthood once again and was accepted at the Dublin Diocesan Seminary at Clonliffe. The experience at the University College was not a good one though. O'Flaherty states:
I detested the other students and the priests in charge, who were soon outraged by the violence of my opinions. After a few weeks, I danced on my soutane, kicked my silk hat to pieces, spat on my religious books, made a fig at the whole rigmarole of Christianity and left that crazy den of superstitious ignorance (O'Flaherty qtd. in Sheeran 61).
O'Flaherty's aversion to religion might have begun at a somewhat early age but heightened in retrospect. The accounts that O'Flaherty wrote later on in life may not have truly reflected his mentality when he was younger. He became more bitter about religion as he got older.
O'Flaherty's life took an odd twist when he dropped out of University College and enlisted in the British Army in 1915. Three reasons exist as to why O'Flaherty made such a drastic move. First, O'Flaherty was rather disillusioned with the Republican cause because its leaders were not as violent and apt to rebel as O'Flaherty would have liked. He felt that they were overly cautious with Republican actions (Doyle 20). Also, O'Flaherty wanted a sense of excitement as war was in the air. Finally, and more realistically, O'Flaherty did not want to lose his scholarship to the University. He was not doing very well academically, and the students enlisting in the British Army "had their scholarships held over until they could resume their studies" (Doyle 20).
The military did not agree with O'Flaherty. He realized that he was not a warrior but rather an intellectual and stated:
I passed that night numb with horror of the future; horrified by the coarse beings who had joined the same day as myself as much as by the inhuman rigidity and ferocious language of those already trained as soldiers (O'Flaherty qtd. in Sheeran 66).
In 1917 at Langemarck, O'Flaherty was seriously wounded by a bomb shell. He was discharge, not from the physical wounds, which had by then healed, but for melancholia acuta (Sheeran 67). This condition made O'Flaherty rather unstable. He always felt an impending "calamity" (Sheeran 67). Needless to say, O'Flaherty came back from the war a bit frazzled. The excitement that he was yearning for was not found; too much excitement was found in the war. His insights were violent and full of fear. The war was both harmful and beneficial (Sheeran 67).
The time after the war became wandering years for O'Flaherty. He held odd jobs and wandered for two years after he was discharged. His exit from military service brought more rebellion. Instead of returning normal into society and trying to fit in with the outside world, O'Flaherty felt the desire to rebel against society even more. He worked as an assistant foreman in a London brewery, as a porter in a hotel, and as a clerk in an engineering firm (Doyle 20). Late in 1918, O'Flaherty set sail as a trimmer on a ship bound for Rio de Janeiro. His romantic nature took over in that he was desiring a euphoric place in Rio. He left his ship and lived as a beach hobo. The city proved again to be a source of disillusionment (Sheeran 71). He identified with the social outcasts in the hoboes but realized that he would never find anything in his wanderings in his continual traveling that was better than his own village (Sheeran 71). He realized that no matter how long he wandered around he would never find exactly that for which he was looking. The unattainable would not be found in travel. O'Flaherty's melancholy and brooding nature could not be satisfied with travel.
In 1920, O'Flaherty returned to Ireland. He became active in Communist activities. The Communist party of Ireland was started by the son of James Connolly, Roderic Connolly, who was the first president. O'Flaherty was active within the party (Cahalan 193). During the Irish Civil War, O'Flaherty and a group of unemployed men gained control of the Rotunda in Dublin and raised the Communist flag over the building (Doyle 21). This small army remained in control for four days. At that time, O'Flaherty fled to Cork and then later to London. His activism was to exhibit the deplorable conditions of the poor. He wanted the government to take notice of their plight (Doyle 21). O'Flaherty explains:
Ever since then, I have remained, in the eyes of the vast majority of Irish men and women, a public menace to faith, morals and property, a Communist, an atheist, a scoundrel of the worst type....Crave forgiveness? Clip the wings of my fancies, in order to win the favour of the mob? To have property and be esteemed? Better to be devoured by the darkness than to be haunted by dolts into an inferior light (O'Flaherty qtd. in Cahalan 195).
O'Flaherty soon joined the Irish Republican Army in an attempt to overthrow the Free State forces to no avail. On 6 December 1922, the Free State was officially established. O'Flaherty lost his spirit of activism and turned his efforts to writing (Cahalan 195).
Liam O'Flaherty is an often overlooked, though quite prolific, Irish writer. His writings are hard to quantify. He vacillates from the romantic to the realistic to the naturalistic to the mystical. O'Flaherty never really found his place in society, which may have actually helped his writings. His abandonment led to imaginative insights. His rebellious nature led to a passion for his writings. The mythical history of Ireland and his impoverished upbringing affected O'Flaherty for the remainder of his life. The unique author Liam O'Flaherty died in Dublin on 7 September 1984.
Chronology of Liam O'Flaherty's Literary
Works1
1923 First published creative work-a short story, "The Sniper"-appeared on January 12, 1923, in the British Socialist weekly The New Leader. Thy Neighbour's Wife.
1924 One of the founders of the short-lived literary magazine To-Morrow. The Black Soul. Spring Sowing.
1924 Several short stories published in Gaelic.
1925 The Informer. Civil War.
1926 The Terrorist; Darkness: A Tragedy in Three Acts; The Tent; Mr. Gilhooley; The Child of God.
1927 The Life of Tim Healy; The Fairy-Goose and Two Other Stories.
1928 The Assassin; Red Barbara and Other Stories: The Mountain Tavern; Prey; The Oar.
1929 The Mountain Tavern and Other Stories; A Tourist's Guide to Ireland; The House of Gold; The Return of the Brute.
1930 Joseph Conrad: An Appreciation. Two Years.
1931 The Ecstasy of Angus; A Cure for Unemployment; I Went to Russia; The Puritan.
1932 The Wild Swan and Other Stories; Skerrett.
1933 The Martyr.
1934 Shame the Devil.
1935 Hollywood Cemetary.
1937 Famine; The Short Stories of Liam O'Flaherty.
1946 Land.
1948 Two Lovely Beasts and Other Stories.
1950 Insurrection.
1953 Duil [Desire], a collection of most of the short stories which O'Flaherty had written in Gaelic.
1956 The Stories of Liam O'Flaherty.
1 Taken from Doyle's book Liam O'Flaherty.
Works Cited
Cahalan, James M. Modern Irish Literature and Culture: A Chronology. New York: G.K. Hall, 1993.
Doyle, Paul A. Liam O'Flaherty. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1971.
Sheeran, Patrick F. The Novels of Liam O'Flaherty: A Study in Romantic Realism. New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1976.