Nuala O'Faolain; Guardian obit
Hyfler/Rosner
Nuala O'Faolain
Writer, journalist and broadcaster, she was a leading figure
in modern Irish culture
Luke Dodd
Monday May 12, 2008
The Guardian
The very pure strain of patriarchy that evolved in
post-independence Ireland, where church and state were often
indistinguishable, produced a noble tradition of female
dissent. The long and illustrious list of women who
challenged the status quo - and changed Irish society in the
process - had no more eloquent an exponent than Nuala
O'Faolain, who has died of cancer aged 68.
O'Faolain's formative years coincided with the emergence of
the women's movement, and her ability to expose misogyny in
all its forms was formidable, forensic and unremitting.
However, O'Faolain's feminism stemmed from a fundamental
belief in social justice. Unlike most commentators, who
maintain a detached, lofty tone, O'Faolain, placed herself
at the centre of things, a high-risk strategy that worked
because of her broad range of erudition, worn lightly, her
courage and a truthfulness that sometimes bordered on the
self-destructive.
Since the 1980s, O'Faolain has been a household name in
Ireland as a broadcaster, journalist and commentator. It was
the surprise international success of her candid memoir, Are
You Somebody? (1996), that brought her to much wider
attention and turned her into a full-time writer.
Born in Dublin, O'Faolain was the second eldest of nine
children. Her stay-at-home mother turned increasingly to
alcohol and reading as a refuge from her 13 pregnancies, and
the philandering of her husband Tomas O'Faolain, the
novelist, short-story writer and journalist who, as Terry
O'Sullivan, wrote Dubliners Diary for the Dublin Evening
Press. Salvation from a chaotic childhood - she grew up
largely in the country around Dublin - followed a familiar
path of waywardness, academic brilliance and books.
O'Faolain's breadth of reading was astonishing, everything
from old English to Proust to popular women's fiction, as
was her recall.
After a boarding convent school in County Monaghan,
O'Faolain enrolled in the English department at University
College Dublin, but dropped out. She completed an
undergraduate degree in medieval English at Hull University
and a postgraduate degree in 19th-century literature at
Oxford University (both on scholarships) before returning to
the UCD English department as an academic. As part of
Dublin's literary scene of the late 1960s and early 1970s,
much of which revolved around pubs and drinking, O'Faolain's
circle included Mary Lavin, John McGahern, Patrick Kavanagh,
Leland Bardwell, Myles na Gopaleen (Brian O'Nolan), Louis
MacNeice, Seamus Deane and Anthony Cronin.
Although feminism was extremely important to O'Faolain, she
readily acknowledged that her convictions were compromised
in her dealings with men, to whom she often ceded
responsibility for personal happiness. She wrote movingly
about this in terms of an unconscious impulse to replicate
the disappointment of her mother's life.
Throughout the 1970s, O'Faolain had an enduring but on-off
relationship with the art critic and writer Tim Hilton, and
she moved to London to be with him. She worked at the BBC as
a television producer, first in the access unit which gave
"ordinary" people the opportunity to make programmes, and
then on Open University programming. This involved much
travel and included a secondment to Tehran for the planning
of an Iranian "open university" in the last year of the
Shah's reign. During this time she also had a relationship
with the celebrated American art critic Clement Greenberg.
Nuala's relationship to England was complicated - the
intellectual milieu both at Oxford and the BBC was exciting
but she found the "relentless English preoccupation with the
rungs of class" oppressive, while at the same time
acknowledging that it granted outsiders, like her, a certain
licence.
At the suggestion of her great friend Seán Mac Réamionn,
O'Faolain attended the Merriman Summer School in County
Clare in the mid-1970s, an event which reconnected her with
Ireland and its culture. She returned to Dublin in 1977 to
Radio Telefis Éireann, where she worked as part of an
all-woman production team on programming dealing
specifically with women's issues. Her Plain Tales - a series
of interviews with "ordinary" woman - won Ireland's premier
television award, the Jacobs, in 1985.
In 1980, O'Faolain became involved with Nell McCafferty, the
feminist, journalist and civil rights activist, a
relationship that lasted almost 15 years and which O'Faolain
referred to as the single "most life-giving" relationship of
her life. In 1986, she joined the Irish Times as a weekly
opinion columnist, and that year gained the accolade of
journalist of the year. O'Faolain adored her work at the
Irish Times, which took her all over the island, and she
revelled in writing about topics as diverse as abortion,
divorce, emigration, Dublin's first gay B&B, the traveller
community, sexual mores in 1950s Ireland, the evolution of
accents as a function of class, and holidaying.
The publication in 1996 of Are You Somebody, a selection of
O'Faolain's Irish Times journalism, became a surprise
success in Ireland because of its brilliantly honest
autobiographical 200-page preface. With a great economy of
expression, O'Faolain brought a refreshing insight to the
familiar themes of love, rejection, loss, the detrimental
effects of alcohol, and the reality of being an unpartnered,
middle aged woman. Within a year, it was No 1 on the New
York Times bestseller list.
O'Faolain produced three other books, all bestselling - a
novel, My Dream of You (2001), a sequel to the memoir,
Almost There (2003), and The Story of Chicago May (2005).
The latter was awarded the Prix Femina in 2006.
In more recent times, O'Faolain divided her time between Co
Clare, Dublin and New York, where she had found happiness
(albeit complicated as she documented in Almost There) with
a new partner, John Low-Beer. She was given an honorary
doctorate by the Open University in 2006. Until she was
diagnosed with cancer, she was covering the US presidential
election for an Irish Sunday newspaper and responded with
great gusto to the dilemma it posed for a feminist - support
for Clinton or Obama.
Having lived a very public life, O'Faolain agreed to be
interviewed on Irish radio about her diagnosis with terminal
cancer and decision to reject chemotherapy. Even in Ireland,
where death is readily acknowledged, the interview sparked a
remarkable public reaction because of the searing honesty
and total lack of sentimentality. At one point in the
interview, which was conducted largely through tears,
O'Faolain remarked that one of the things that saved her
from self-pity was that, "in my time, which is mostly the
20th century, people have died horribly in Auschwitz, in
Darfur, or are dying of starvation or dying multiply raped
in the Congo or dying horribly like that. I think how
comfortably I am dying, I have friends and family, I am in
this wonderful country, I have money, there is nothing much
wrong with me except I am dying."
· Nuala O'Faolain, writer and journalist, born March 1 1940;
died May 9 2008
La N
"Hyfler/Rosner" <rel...@rcn.com> wrote in message
news:Vv-dnTy8D9QvAbrV...@rcn.net...
>
> O'Faolain produced three other books, all bestselling - a novel, My Dream
> of You (2001), a sequel to the memoir, Almost There (2003), and The Story
> of Chicago May (2005).
I *thought* the name was familiar. I scooped up the book about Chicago May
from the local library when it was a new release.
- nilita
Hyfler/Rosner
"La N" <nilita20...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:Ei7Wj.2320$KB3.2208@edtnps91...
I loved Are You Somebody, loved her voice and what she had
to say.
If you listen to the radio interview she did a month ago,
it'll break your heart, but I loved what she had to say
there, as well.