Eileen O'Faolain

Eileen O'Faolain was born Eileen Gould at 5 Lee Rd, Cork on 10 June 1900. Her parents were Joseph Gould, engineman, and Julia (née O'Connell). She had four siblings. Her mother died young, so O'Faolain and her siblings were raised by their maternal aunt at 4 Walls Terrace, Sunday's Well. She was educated locally and graduated from University College Cork (UCC) with a degree in economics in 1923. O'Faolain spent summer holidays in west Cork with Irish-speaking families and met Seán Ó Faoláin at an Irish language summer school at the Presentation Brothers College. When he followed her to Ballingeary, to an Irish summer school, they started a relationship. They attended UCC together, sharing mutual interests in literature and Irish cultural and republican movements. O'Faolain was an active member of Cumann na mBan during the Irish Civil War, acting as a courier, distributing an underground anti-treaty news sheet. She was arrested in February 1923, and was imprisoned for a number of months. She became disillusioned, believing that many of her fellow republicans were driven by "love for [their] own ruthless selves", which strained relations with Seán but he eventually came to the same conclusion.^[1]

O'Faolain taught in a national school in Ballinasloe, County Galway from 1923 to 1925, and then a technical school in Naas, County Kildare from 1925 to 1927. She then finally agreed to requests from Seán to join him in the United States while he was a Harvard postgraduate student from 1927 to 1929. Initially, they lived in a settlement house where she worked, later moving to 10 Appian Way, Cambridge where she took up secretarial work. They married on 3 June 1928 in Boston's Cathedral of the Holy Cross, spending their honeymoon camping across the United States for two months. The couple lived in London from 1929 to 1933, where she taught at a convent school in Isleworth teaching commercial subjects. When they returned to Ireland in 1933, Seán decided to become a full-time writer. They lived at Killough House, County Wicklow from 1933 to 1938, going on to build a house at Knockaderry, Killiney, County Dublin where they lived until 1971. It was here that she created a well-regarded garden. From 1971 to 1988 they lived at 17 Rosmeen Park, Dún Laoghaire, County Dublin. The couple had two children, Julia (born 1932) and Stephen (born 1938).^[1][2][3]