Dr. Deirdre Serjeanston: Memory & Landscape in the novels of Maurice Walsh

This lecture, by the distinguished University of Cambridge scholar Deirdre Serjeantson, will offer an overview of a selection of the novels of the Listowel writer Maurice Walsh. It will also inquire into Walsh's success in his own lifetime, the literary craft that underlies his use of Irish and Scottish settings, his mastery of the swashbuckling mode, and his prolific mining of history and mythology. Through the lens of the ideas of memory and landscape, a new Maurice Walsh will come into view, and a new prospect for the study and celebration of a Listowel titan.

More about Maurice Walsh

Maurice Walsh (1879–1964) was born in Ballydonoghue, Listowel. He was educated at Lisselton national school, and St Michael's College. His wife Caroline Thomson Begg was Scottish, and he worked for some years in Scotland as a customs and excise official with expertise in whiskey, which eventually led to a job at the Phoenix Park distillery. A founding member of The Bell periodical, through which he was a controversial advocate for Irish neutrality, he published twenty-two novels, many of which were best-sellers and widely translated. His historical novels include And No Quarter (1937), narrated by an Irish surgeon, and Sons of the Swordmaker (1938), based on an Ulster Cycle myth. Son of Apple (1947) is based on a translation of a Kerry folk tale. Contemporary Ireland is the setting for The Road to Nowhere (1934), and Castle Gillian (1948). He also wrote two detective novels. John Ford's immortal 1952 film The Quiet Man, starring John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara, was based on a short story by Walsh that was included in the collection Green Rushes (1936).

More about Deirdre Serjeantson

Deirdre Serjeantson grew up in Kildare, and was educated at Newbridge College and then at Magdalen College, Oxford. She did a PhD in Trinity College Dublin under the supervision of Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, and now teaches at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. She has published extensively on renaissance poetry and Irish literature.

She is delighted to be talking about Maurice Walsh in his own home town, where she spent many happy childhood holidays.

Listowel Writer's Week: where readers celebrate, and writers find their flow

Listowel Writer's Week is Ireland's oldest literary festival, and one of its most prestigious. Famously hospitable, the beautiful North Kerry town of Listowel is internationally renowned as a wellspring of literary inspiration and heritage. The 2024 Listowel Writer's Week Festival programme, exploring the theme Mother Nature, has been curated by the poet Martin Dyar.

See writersweek.ie for more details and the full 2024 festival programme

Disclaimer. Please be aware that many events at Listowel Writer's Week will be recorded and photographed for promotional and archival purposes. Your presence constitutes consent to be filmed and photographed. Thank you.