Agnes O'Farrelly
| Agnes O'Farrelly | |
|---|---|
| Born |
24 June 1874 Raffony, Virginia, County Cavan |
| Died | 5 November 1951 (aged 77) Dublin, Ireland |
Agnes Winifred O'Farrelly (24 June 1874 – 5 November 1951) (Irish: Úna Ní Fhaircheallaigh; nom-de-plume 'Uan Uladh'), was an academic and Professor of Irish at University College Dublin (UCD). She was also the first female Irish-language novelist, a founding member of Cumann na mBan, and fourth president of the Camogie Association.
She was born 24 June 1874 in Raffony House, Virginia, County Cavan, one of five daughters and three sons of Peter Dominic Farrelly and Ann Farrelly (née Sheridan). Her first published work was a series of saccharine-sweet articles in the Anglo-Celt in January–March 1895, 'Glimpses of Breffni and Meath' appeared, after which the editor, Edward O'Hanlon encouraged her to study literature.
In February 1887, she signed up to the "Irish Fireside Club", a new column in the Weekly Freeman edited by Rose Kavanagh, symptomatic of the expanding field of children's literature during the fin de siècle. This club boasted over 60,000 child members during its height, and facilitated the mass-indoctrination of a generation of Irish children into the cultural nationalist movement. She was to become the most vocal female within this club, which moulded her utopian, feminist and nationalist thought throughout adulthood.
As soon as she became financially independent, she enrolled in St. Mary's University College, Dublin, and she duly convinced her College Principal to enlist the College's first ever Irish language lecturer so that she could study the language as part of her Arts Degree. Eoin MacNeill, Vice-President of the Gaelic League, the main cultural nationalist body in operation in Ireland since 1893, was recruited and a class was set up, with Farrelly (or O'Farrelly as she then became known) encouraging young women from other Women's Colleges in Dublin to attend. Through this initiative, a core group of middle-class and educated female cultural nationalists emerged in the capital city, including Máire Ní Chinnéide and Mary E.L. Butler, who, like O'Farrelly, would go on to play major roles in the Gaelic League's development through the first two decades of the twentieth century, as literary figures, educationalists and language activists.
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