Maurice Walsh

Maurice Walsh (21 April 1879–18 February 1964) was an Irish novelist best known for the short story The Quiet Man which was later made into an Oscar-winning movie directed by John Ford and starring John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara. He was one of Ireland's best-selling authors in the 1930s.

Maurice Walsh was born on 21 April 1879 in Ballydonoghue, near Listowel, County Kerry, Ireland. He was the third child of ten and the first son born to John Walsh, a local farmer, and his wife Elizabeth Buckley who lived in a three-roomed thatched farmhouse.

John Walsh’s main interests were books and horses and he himself did little about the farm, preferring to have a hired man. The most famous of these was Paddy Bawn Enright, whose name was to be immortalised by Maurice Walsh in his story The Quiet Man (though the name was not used in the movie version). John Walsh passed on to his son not only a love of books but also legends and folk tales and the theory of place that were later to be a feature of many of Maurice’s books.

Maurice went to school in Lisselton, a mile or so up the road from Ballydonoghue, and later went to St Michael’s College in Listowel to prepare for the Civil Service examination. He entered the service on 2 July 1901 as an Assistant Revenue Officer in the Customs and Excise Service. He was posted to Scotland before the year was out and, although he subsequently had a number of postings outside Scotland, he would spend most of his time there while in the British service.

Maurice had always been interested in writing and, during his early years in Scotland, this interest started to bear fruit. He sent off some stories and had two published in the Irish Emerald in 1908. That year also saw his marriage, on 8 August 1908, in Dufftown, Banffshire, Scotland, to Caroline Begg (always known by her nickname "Toshon").

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