Edna O'Brien

An Irish writer, famous for her rich and sensuous prose, O'Brien made her breakthrough with "The Country Girls Trilogy" (1960-64). Due to the historic, conservative and mythological writings of catholic authors, several of O'Brien's books, dealing with murder, childhood and disappointments in sexual love, have been banned in Ireland. Her works have gained wide acclaim, particularly among American readers.

"They used to ban my books, but now when I go there, people are courteous to my face,

though rather slanderous behind my back. Then again, Ireland has changed. There are a

lot of young people who are irreligious, or less religious. Ironically, they wouldn't be

interested in my early books - they would think them gauche. They are aping English and

American mores. If I went to a dance hall in Dublin now, I would feel as alien as in a

disco in Oklahoma." (Craig, 43)

Edna O'Brien was born in Twamgraney, County Clare. Her family was opposed to anything to do with literature and later she described her small village "enclosed, fervid and bigoted." When O'Brien was a student in Dublin and her mother found a book of Sean O'Casey in her suitcase she wanted to burn it. After finishing primary school O'Brien was educated at the Convent of Mercy in Loughrea (1941-46). In Dublin she worked in a pharmacy, and studied at the Pharmaceutical College at night. During this period she wrote small pieces for the Irish Press. In 1950 she was awarded a licence as pharmacist. Married in the summer of 1954, O'Brien moved with her husband, the Czech/Irish writer Ernest Gйbler, and two sons to London. In Ireland she read such writers Tolstoy, Thackeray, F. Scott Fitzgerald. Of the connection between her writing and her life, O'Brien says, "It is as if the life lived has not been lived until it is set down in this unconscious sequence of words." The first book O'Brien ever bought was Introducing James Joyce by T.S. Eliot. She has said that Joyce's Portrait of the Artist made her realize that she wanted literature for the rest of her life.

While O'Brien was gaining fame as a writer, her husband struggled with his own works. Carlo Gйbler, their son, writes in Father & I (2001), that he insisted she sign a payment from her publisher over to him - she did, and left him. Since her divorce in 1964, she has remained in England. Later she called her husband "an attractive father figure - a Professor Higgins." O'Brien published her first novel, The Country Girls, in 1960. The story is partly based on the author's own experiences being brought up in a convent. "The novel is autobiographical insofar I was born and bred in the west of Ireland, educated at a convent, and was full of romantic yearnings, coupled with a sense of outrage." (O'Brien in Writers at Work) The Country Girls continued in The Lonely Girl (1962) and Girls in Their Married Bliss (1964). The trilogy traced the lives of two Irish women, Kate and Baba, from their school days in the Irish countryside to their disillusioned adulthood and failed marriages in London. The friends have a strict Roman Catholic upbringing, which comes into conflict with their sexuality and their dependence on men. Kathy's relationship with a married man is fruitless. She starts an affair with Eugene, whom she considers a great lover but not much else. Her marriage with Eugene is unlucky, and they separate. Baba marries a man who offers her financial security. Because of the graphic sexual content of the story, the whole trilogy, and six of the author's subsequent works, were banned in Ireland. "While feminists have not been fond of her work because of her heroines' chasing after men, ''The Country Girls Trilogy'' is a powerful argument for feminism. To watch Kate and Baba and their various partners making war, not love, reminds us of ignorant armies that clash by night." (Criag, 33) In 1986, the three novels with an epilogue were published in one volume as The Country Girls Trilogy and Epiloouge. Edna O' Brien has always been the subject of controversy and harsh criticism. She has been accused of writing about "yesterday's Ireland." One critic went as far as to calling her writing decrepit. In an interview with Alice Powers she fired back against critics.

"Those critics who are under the impression that my novels are yesterday's Ireland might like to visit the law courts throughout the country where land feuds are being fought; or talk to IRA prisoners, and ex-prisoners, and follow the heated debate and indoctrination of pro-life groups, both in Dublin and in the country. I did a lot of research for that trilogy. I visited people who kill, solicitors, barristers, lunatics, doctors, psychiatrists -- the whole caboodle. I spend a lot of time in Ireland and it is really immaterial whether I write my books in County Clare or Vladivostok."(Powers, 83)

Criticism, however, was not O'Brien's biggest concern. The influence of the Church in government and literature was very apparent. The highly politicized nature of Church authority, in an almost uniformly Catholic state, acted as a powerful cementing factor in society.

Since Henry II of England brought Ireland under the influence of the Roman Catholic Church in the twelfth century, the Irish became thoroughly Catholic. As England turned to Protestantism in the Reformation, Ireland became more Catholic. John Wesley came to Ireland later on and preached extensively, but his teachings were followed mostly by English settlers. Along with his teachings, early literature began to flourish. Modern scholars have organized this early literature into four groups of stories called cycles, which are related by theme. These cycles are the Mythological, the Ulster, the Fenian, and the Historical (or Kings). The Ulster and Fenian cycles narrate the deeds of ancient heroes, and the Historical Cycle tells the lives of kings.

The Normans introduced a central government and a feudal system, whereby nobles owned land and peasants worked it, but their conquest of Ireland was slow and incomplete. Many Normans adopted the Irish language and Irish ways, and Gaelic culture flourished alongside its Norman counterpart. Satiric literature appeared in both the Irish and English languages, although English increasingly