SELECT BODY OF O’KELLY WRITINGS OUT

Leinster Leader 17 January 1970

Select body of O’Kelly writings out

FOR the first time a select body of the writings of Seamus O’Kelly are available in one volume.

Published on 5th December by Gill and Macmillan under the title A Land of Loneliness this work, which was selected and edited with a critical introduction by Eamonn Grennan, an Irish man completing doctoral studies at Harvard University includes works which are worthy of preservation by any standards.

One such work, The Weavers Grave, is regarded throughout the world as a masterpiece. It is the best known and most translated and broadcast of O’Kelly’s works.

Born in Loughrea  Co Galway Seamus O’Kelly started life as journalist on the Connacht Leader In 1904 he became the youngest editor in Ireland when he took over The Southern Star, and in the following years he became editor of Leinster Leader; the Saturday Evening Post; the Sunday Freeman and Nationality. As well as being a journalist O’Kelly was also a poet, playwright, novelist and short-story writer. In fact he was a master of the short story form, a fact which is acknowledged by writers and scholars everywhere.

Now, just over fifty years after his death Seamus O’Kelly is receiving deservedly so greater eminence then he received in his life-time or in the half century since his passing. Last year to perpetuate his memory a Seamus O’Kelly Society was formed in Dublin.

The publishers hope that that the publication of A Land of Loneliness will help to preserve the memory of a writer who was in the true sense a gentleman and a scholar.

 Re-typed by Lynn Potts