Eithne Strong

Eithne Strong
Born	1923 Limerick, Ireland
Died	1999 Monkstown, County Dublin
Pen name	Eithne Strong
Occupation	Poet, Writer
Nationality	Irish

Eithne Strong (née O'Connell, 1923–1999)^[1] was a bilingual Irish poet and writer who wrote in both Irish and English. She was a founder of Runa Press, noted for the publication in 1943 of Marrowbone Lane by Robert Collis which depicts the fierce fighting that took place during the Easter Rising of 1916.

Life and work

Strong was born in Glensharrold, Co. Limerick to school teachers, John and Kathleen(Lennon) O'Connell.^[1] She went to the Irish speaking school Scoil Muiris in Ennis. Strong moved to Dublin but was not able to afford college at the time. She worked in the Civil Service for a year.^[2]

She met her husband while in Dublin. Psychoanalyst Rupert Strong was twelve years her senior and though against the wishes of her family she stayed there and married him on November 12, 1943.^[1][3] She founded Runa Press, a small poetry press and worked there. They had nine children the last of whom required full-time care due to a mental handicap.^[4]

She went to college in Trinity College, Dublin in her forties where she got a B.A in 1973.^[1] She was encouraged and admired in her poetry by Brendan Kennelly, Padraic Colum, Hilton Edwards and Kevin Casey. She taught creative writing and did lecture tours in the USA.^[5]

Author and poet Mary O'Donnell in her forward-essay^[6] to Strong's poems suggested that “ diversity of thought and impulse makes these poems radiate humanity, belief and a revelatory sense of justice.” The editor of Poethead Wordpress, Christine Elizabeth Murray has linked the poetry of Patrick Kavanagh, Padraic Colum and Eithne Strong,^[7] describing their work " as an example of the triumph of art and literature providing an amazing root-system for new writers in terms of earthly estate, land and language".

In 1991 she won the Kilkenny Design Award for Flesh – The Greatest Sin. She was a member of Aosdána. She died in Monkstown, Dublin in 1999.^{[8] [9]}

The Dún Laoghaire Annual Arts Festival awards the Rupert & Eithne Strong Poetry Prize.^[10] On International Women's Day 2000, an event was held to commemorate the life and work of Eithne Strong at the Irish Writer's Centre, Parnell Square, Dublin and a room was named in her honour in 2012.

http://irishwriterscentre.ie/collections/our-venue-your-event

Bibliography

Poetry in Irish

• Nobel ( Coiscéim 1999)
• Cirt Oibre (Coiscéim 1980)
• Fuil agus Fallaí (Coiscéim 1983)
• Aoife faoi Ghlas (BAC: Coiscéim 1990)
• An Sagart Pinc (Coiscéim 1990)

Poetry in English

• Poetry Quatros. Dublin: Runa, 1943-45.
• Songs of Living (1961)
• Sarah, in Passing (Dublin: Dolmen 1974), (Illustrated by John Hodge)
• Flesh – The Greatest Sin (Dublin: Runa Press 1980)
• My Darling Neighbour(Belfast: Beaver Row Press 1985)
• Let Live (Galway: Salmon Publ. Co. 1990)
• Spatial Nosing: New and Selected Poems. (Galway: Salmon Poetry, 1993)

Fiction

• Degrees of Kindred (Tansy Books 1979), novel
• Patterns and other Stories (Poolbeg 1981),
• The Love Riddle (Attic Press 1993), novel

Other Writings

• "Mullaghareik: Aspects in Perspective". Author writes about her youth in Eire-Ireland Review, ed. Michael O'Siadhail
• 'Thomas Mann Country' in Poetry Ireland Review, ed. Michael O'Siadhail

Translation

• ‘Tetrach of Galilee’, translated by Eithne Strong in The Finest Stories of Padraic Ó Conaire, 15 short stories, with other writers ( Dublin, Poolbeg 1982 ) 32-45

Criticism

• Bertram, Vicki. ed. Kicking Daffodils: Twentieth Century Women Poets. Smyth, Ailbhe .Dodging Around the Grand Piano: Sex, Politics and Contemporary Irish Women's Poetry. Edinburgh University Press, 1997. 56-83.
• Clifton, Harry. 'Available Air: The Role of Women in Contemporary Irish Poetry 1975-1985. Krino, No. 7, 1989, pp. 20–30.
• Colum, Padraic. Introduction to Songs of Living, Dublin: Runa, 1961, 7 -8.
• Consalvo, Deborah Mcwilliams. Review of the Love Riddle. Irish Studies Review 4, no. 3 (January 19196) 52-53.
• Haberstroh, Patricia Boyle. "Eithne Strong" in Women Creating Women: Contemporary Irish Women Poets. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2001.
• Haberstroh, Patricia Boyle. ed. My Self, My Muse: Irish Women Poets Reflect on Life and Art. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2001.
• Heininger, Joseph, ' Eithne Strong' in Gonzalez Alexander, (ed.) Irish women Writers: an A to Z Guide, Greenwood, 2006, pp. 303–8.
• O'Donnell, Mary. "Introduction". In Spatial Nosing: New and Selected Poems. Galway: Salmon, 1993.
• McWilliams, Deborah H. ' Eithne Strong ' in Gonzalez, Alexander (ed). Modern Irish Writers A Critical Sourcebook, Aldwych Press, London, 1997, pp. 390–93.
• Smyth, Ailbhe. ed. Wildish Things: An Anthology of New Irish Women's Writing. Attic, 1989, 1990.
• Terente, Ines Praga. A Voice of Their Own? The Role of Women in Contemporary Irish Poetry [. Universidad de Valladolid Revista Alicantina de Estudios Ingleses 5 (1992): 131-41.

Further reading

• List of her work and works about her
• Brady, Anne M. and Cleeve, Brian. eds. A Biographical Dictionary of irish Writers, The Lilliput Presss, 1985, p. 229
• Buck, Clare. ed. Guide to Women's Literature, Bloomsbury Publishing, 1992, p. 1052.
• Chapman 92: Irish Issue (1999) p. 11-13
• Conlon, Evelyn & Oeser, Hans-Christian. ed. Cutting the Night in Two, Short Stories by Irish Women Writers, Thursday to Wednesday by Eithne Strong, New Island, 2001, p. 75-88.
• Conlon, Evelyn. ed. An Cloigeann Is a Luach, What Worth the Head, Co. Limerick Anthology. An Cloigeann is a Luach by Eithne Strong, 196 -204, published by Limerick County Council (1998) ISBN 9780953329908.
• Cowman, R.. (1997). [Review of Women Creating Women: Contemporary Irish Women Poets]. The Poetry Ireland Review, (52), 107–110. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/25578747
• Crowe,Thomas Rain et al. eds. Writing The Wind: A Celtic Resurgence: The New Celtic Poetry, New Native Press, 1997, pp. 154–55.
• Dunne, Sean. ed. Poets of Munster. London Anvil Press, 1985.
• Fallon,Peter. The Penguin Book of Contemporary Irish Poetry, Hardmonsworth Penguin Books, 1990.
• Fitzmaurice, Gabriel and Kiberd, Declan. eds. An Crann Faoi Blath / TheFlowering Tree, Wolfhound Press 1991, pp. 110–113.
• Hogan, Robert. ed . The Macmillian Dictionary of Irish Literature, The Macmillam Press Ltd. 1980 pp. 630–31.
• Housen Severin. ed. Feathers & Bones, Ten Poets of the Irish Earth, Halcyon Press, 1981, ISBN 0-87961-120-0.
• Jeffries, A. Norman. ed. Irish Love Poems, O'Brien Press, Dublin, 1997.
• Lawlor Brian, ed. Encyloppedia of Ireland, Gill and MacMillian 2003.
• Poetry in the Archive: Reflections of a Former Archivist on the Manuscripts of Twentieth-century Irish Poets in the National Library of Ireland by Eilis Ni Duibhne in Irish University Review, Vol. 43, Issue1, May 2012. Describes process of acquiring one poetry archive, that of Eithne Strong . Available on-line.
• Kelly, Angeline A. ed. The Pillars of the House: An Anthology of Verse by Irish Women from 1690 to the Present. Wolfhound, 1997. p. 114. Translation of 'Necessity for Reverence' from the Irish.
• Morgan, Jack. New World Irish: Notes on 100 Years of Lives and Letters in American Culture: The Celtic Carnivalesque and Muriel Rukeyser's Irish Journey of Passion and Transformation. Palgrave McMillan, 2011, Chap. 13.
• Nic Thaidhg, Andrea. The German translation of ' A Cheile na Triocha mBliain' in Und Sucht Meine Zunge Ab ach Worten, Edition Druckhaus, Neunsehn, 1996.
• Strong, E.. (1992). Poems. The Canadian Journal of Irish Studies, 18(1), 146–150. http://doi.org/10.2307/25512904
• Harmon, M.. (1985). [Review of The Non-Aligned Storyteller; A Crack in the Ice; A Bright Mask. New and Selected Poems; The Restless Factor; After Thunder; New and Selected Poems; Raven Introductions 3. New Writing from Ireland; Age of Exploration; Collected Poems, Volume I; My Darling Neighbour; The Táin; Blas Meala. A Sip from the Honey-Pot; Thomas Tranströmer, the Wild Marketplace; Collected Poems 1960-1984]. Irish University Review, 15(2), 234–243. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/25477596

. Weekes, Ann Owens, ed. Unveiling Treasures: The Attic Guide to Irish Literary Writers, Attic Press, Dublin 1993, pp. 331–3.

. Welch, Robert.The Concise Oxford Companion to Irish Literature, Oxford University Press, 2000.

References