A Rich Woman - From their pens...
Katharine Tynan
Katharine Tynan was born on 23rd January 1859 into a large family in Clondalkin, County Dublin.
The family business was cattle rearing and the farmhouse, set with the mountains for a backdrop, was a wonderful world for a young mind to learn and imagine.
She was educated at the convent school, St Catherine of Sienna, in Drogheda. A stubborn streak inhibited her ability to learn as easily as the school wished. However she did learn on her own terms and soon began to take her ‘forbidden literature’, hidden in her clothing, to her loft in a stable hideaway.
Until she turned seventeen nothing appeared to point to a literary career. But some verse printed in a Dublin newspaper changed everything. It led to a sonnet being printed in the Spectator. Thereafter the Graphic published several others and even paid a half guinea for the privilege.
In 1884 Katharine dispatched herself to London and made an abiding friendship in Alice Meynell. Alice was an established poet and helped, with her husband Wilfred, to publish many poets. The following year it was arranged for the publication of her first poetry volume, ‘Louise de la Vallière’.
She formed valuable friendships with the poets Gerard Manley Hopkins, William Butler Yeats and later Francis Ledwidge.
As she gathered friends and contacts into her life her literary output began to gather pace. Katharine had begun to write prose for the Speaker and for the Scots and National Observer.
In 1892 she married Henry Albert Hinkson, a fellow writer and a barrister. They moved to England and had five children although two were to tragically die in infancy.
By now her output was prolific and ranged from poetry to novels to short stories. It would later include a biography and further extend to editing and reviewing.
In 1912 the family returned to Claremorris, County Mayo, when her husband was appointed magistrate, a post he held until his early death in 1919.
Tynan is sometimes grouped amongst the War Poets of the First World War. Her experience was not direct but as a Mother with one son serving in France and another in Palestine, the emotions, fears and doubts are expressed in a beautiful and heart-felt way.
Involved in the Irish Literary Revival, Tynan expressed concern for feminist causes, the poor, and the effects of World War I in her work. She also meditated on her Catholic faith.
She is said to have written over 100 novels, 12 collections of short stories, plays and many volumes of enduring poetry as well as five volumes of autobiography.
Katharine Tynan Hinkson died at age 72 on 2nd April 1931 in London and is buried in Kensal Green Cemetery.
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