Pray for the Wanderer Part II

Matt Costello has had some success with his plays in London and the US. He feels he needs a break from London because he has been involved for some time with a married English actress who does not want to get a divorce. He is very fond of his brother, Will who has a farm near Mellick, and his wife Una is a very sweet good natured woman. He finds it hard to be apart from his mistress but it seems as if their affair is doomed. However he does not like the new Ireland that has come along since the separation from England. As a writer, he finds the censorship and narrowness of mind very depressing. He feels that it destroys art, and that apart from literature, Ireland has no great art unlike other Catholic countries. He supported the fight for Irish independence but is dismayed by what he sees the country has become. (Its believed that this novel was written to hit back at Irish censorship as it came soon after Mary Lavelle, Kate's "Spanish" novel was banned in Ireland. Largely because of its having a lesbian character and the heroine engaging in an adulterous relationship). Una's sister Nell is a supporter of De Valera and a devout Catholic, and although she is attractive and intelligent, he finds himself at odds with her... Una had hoped that he and Nell might get along as Nell is a teacher and well read, but they dont. Nell lives with her aunt who is also a devout and narrow minded Catholic, and her cousin Tom lives with them. He is more open minded and Matt learns that years ago, Tom and Nell were engaged. As cousins they had to get a dispensation from Rome to marry, but in that time, Nell found out that Tom had had an affair with a shop girl, who had his child. He has supported the child and remained in touch with the girl, and she later married a man of her own class, but Nell becomes positively hysterical that Tom was thinking of marrying HER when he had seduced a young woman and made her pregnant.

Pray for the Wanderer by Kate O' Brien

This was one of Kate's mid life novels and it is set in Ireland in the 1930s, the age of De Valera. Kate was not a radical but she was liberal minded and when she lived in Spain she sympathised with the Spanish republic and disapproved of the conservative faction who ruled Spain. She lived in Ireland for some time as an adult but in her later years she moved to England and lived there till she died. Her novels were less popular and she was not well off but she preferred England to the conservative little state that Ireland had become after it gained independence. She had been brought up a Catholic but as a young woman she began to lose her faith. Probably some of this was to do with her realising that she was a lesbian which was forbidden by the Church. However she thought of herself as a European and she regarded Catholicism as part of the wider European tradition and did not entirely reject it. She found Irish Catholicism narrow and depressing and unintellectual. Her hero in Pray for the Wanderer is an Irish playwright - Matt Costello -who lives in London and he comes home for a short holiday to see his brother and his brother's family. More will follow.

Without my Cloak, Part V

Christina tells him that she is settling into New York life and when he tells her he still loves her and wants her to come home and marry him, she refuses. She knows that their class differences will make it impossible for her to become part of his family. Denis is confused. He wants to rescue her and doesnt know why she is so reluctant to accept his offer of marriage. Then she tells him that she has had an offer of marriage from someone in New York and she's going to marry him. Denis doesn't believe her, at first and thinks that she is making it up to save him from having to marry her and take her back to Ireland. But when he meets her employer, he can see that the man, who is quite a bit older than Christina, does love her and perhaps she will be happy with him. She seems so determined to stay in New York, and he knows that she's right about the problems of her marrying into the wealthy Considines. Sadly, he goes back home. He is now close to his 21st birthday and his father is trying to cheer him up by giving him generous presents and a promotion in his job. He is pleased in one way but then suddenly he ralises that he's being trapped, and that he does not want to be trapped. He decides to walk out on the family, and disappears for a day. His father is badly shaken. Then Denis returns towards the end of the day and meets Anna Hennessy, the daughter of a wealthy Catholic businessman, who is intelligent and attractive. She and he start to talk and he decides that he will stay in Mellick and try to pursue a relationship with her. She is more suitable to marry him than Christina was, and he finds himself falling for her. Im not so keen on this ending as it seems rather callous of Denis to leave Christina, whom he claimed to love, in New York...and he seems to rush into this new relationship with Anna.

Without my Cloak Part IV

Denis is drawn towards Christina, but knows his family would be horrified at the bare idea of his being friendly with a peasant girl who is illegitimate and the child of a servant. But within a short time, he and she become lovers. He feels like he is deeply in love with her and doesn't know what to do. Then he goes to meet her, one evening and she does not turn up. He finds that his uncle Tom, who is parish priest of the area covering the river, was walking late one night near his home and heard the two young lovers talking. He goes to Christina's aunt and tells her that they must send Christina away to prevent the 2 young people from falling into sin. Her aunt does not care much for her niece, and is willing to push her into going abroad, especially as Fr Tom is willing to pay for her to go away. Denis is furious when he discovers that Christina, who feared going to a big city, has been forced to go-. She has relatives in New York and Fr Tom has paid for her to go there, and given her some money.. Denis angrily tells his uncle and relatives that he and Christina were lovers and they are even more horrified. He says that he is going to America to find her. They know they cant stop him.. but are scandalised that he has been having sex with a girl and that she is a servant's child. Denis sails for America and when he gets to New York, he finds that Christina's aunt who lived there with an abusive husband has moved away from the city and noone knows where she is. So Christina had noone to give her a home when she arrived. He spends weeks searching the waterfront and the poor areas to see if she has found some work and a place to live there. When he has almost given up hope, he finds her one day. She has a job in a small diner and the owner is not unkind to her, but she has to work very hard.

Without My Cloak Part III

Eddy and Denis note that Caroline is now middle aged and not very happy and feel sorry for her. Another member of the family is Teresa, Eddy's sister, who marries a nonentity called Danny Mulqueen. He works in Considine's but is not very clever. She has several children and lives for the eldest boy, Reggie, who is a rakish young man, who contracts a sexually transmitted disease. He is in poor health, and Teresa only half understands what's wrong with him. The Mulqueens appear in one of OBrien's later novels, The Ante Room, where the heroine is Agnes, Reggie's sister. Eddy talks seriously to Denis when the boy is leaving school, telling him that he should make use of the fortune that his grandfather left him, and not go into the family business. He thinks that Denis has some special qualities and he should at least try his luck at something outside even if he does end up settling for Considines. Denis is tempted but he loves his father and finds it hard to walk out on him. Denis starts working in the business and finds it rather dull but he does not want to hurt his father so he starts learning it from the bottom up. His cousin, Tony, goes into an order of Monks at Mount Mellary, and he loses touch with him.. and he can't understand why he has taken on this hard life. Getting increasingly bored, Denis starts going fishing at a river nearby, and enjoys it for a time, but then he meets a girl from a local farm, Christina Roche, who is gathering firewood near the river. Her aunt has a small farm which is rented from a Protestant landlord, and is very poor, living just above starvation level. Denis is struck by her beauty, and she tells him that she is illegitimate. Her mother was a servant who got pregnant and her aunt agreed to take care of her but she is barely able to support herself and her own children. Christina dreads the thought of emigrating to America or even England but she fears that her aunt can't give her a home indefinitely.

Without my Cloak Part II

Anthony is desperately upset by his wife's death. She was only a young woman and had had 8 children. He knows that Molly was not ever very maternal and that the frequent pregnancies wore her body out and made her unhappy but both of them were in love and eager to be lovers. Due to their Catholicism however they could not do anything to protect her against having babies. He travels abroad for work a lot and he begins to take mistresses, and decides not to remarry but to see his women while away from Ireland. Anthony loves his eldest son Denis, very much and spoils him. He is the cleverest and most attractive of the family. Denis loves his father and is delighted that he allows him his own way so much. He takes a great interest in gardening and Anthony lets him re design the garden of their country house... As Denis grows up, he reads a lot and gets a good education. Other members of the family are fond of him, especially his uncle Eddy who runs the English branch of the business and uses living in England to get out from the strict Irish Catholic atmosphere and the rather smothering ambience of his family. It is hinted that Eddy might be gay, but he also has a special love for his sister Caroline, who is married in Mellick and has several children. She however is not that happy with Mellick life or her marriage. She does not like sex with her husband, and after several years, she suddenly runs away, and goes to London to seek refuge with Eddy. During her short stay there, she is aware that her family will be horrified by her walking out, and will pressure her to come back and that she can't escape Mellick or the Considines. She meets one of Eddy's friends and is attracted by him and tempted to sleep with him. But Eddy tells her sadly that she has no real choice. She has to go back to her husband. Caroline returns and tries to tolerate her husband and her life at home.

Without my Cloak, by Kate O'Brien

I hope to write a blog about Without my Cloak, the first novel of Kate O'Brien. It won a prize - the Hawthorden Prize- and launched her on a fiction writing career. It is based loosely on her own family history. In the later Victorian era, a small minority of Catholics began to rise in the world, thanks to the removal of restrictions on Catholics and the fall in population after the Famine. There were a lot less people in Ireland and the opportunities for Catholics to rise in the world increased. They were running successful businesses and forming a new Catholic middle class, which rivalled the Protestant landed class which was beginning to lose its status. Kate's grandfather had been evicted from his home and it worked out well for him, as he moved to Limerick city and set up a sucessful business. By the time Kate was growing up, the family were less prosperous but they were middle class and still doing reasonably well. Without my Cloak is a history of the Considine family who sell fodder for horses... Their start in business was initiated by Antony Considine who stole a horse and escaped from his country home to Mellick (O'Briens name for Limerick) and founded a business. His son, "Honest John" Considine, became very well to do and had a large family. His sons became successful, one a priest, another a doctor.. and his son Anthony took over running the business. Honest John died and Anthony who now had a sizable family, also lost his young wife Molly. M/F