Last of Liam O’Flaherty’s novels is finally republished – 87 years on
Aran author Liam O’Flaherty’s banned novel The Martyr has just been republished by Nuascéalta – 87 years since its first and only publication, back in 1933.
And with this reprint of The Martyr, Nuascéalta publishers complete their epic task of returning to Ireland the last three major O’Flaherty novels banned by the Irish state.
The Galway novel The House of Gold, and O’Flaherty’s insightful and scathing Hollywood satire Hollywood Cemetery, had already been re-issued.
O’Flaherty’s novels – mainly written in the 1920s and 1930s – collectively address significant events in Irish history and the newly emerging Free State.
Nuascéalta’s return of The Martyr to the book shevles comes as the centenaries of the War of Independence and the Civil War are commemorated.
The Martyr gives O’Flaherty’s take on the battle to control the country’s destiny. The novel written just ten years after the civil war, and published in 1933, brings to life the nationwide Free State attack on the anti-Treaty forces.
One such offensive was the landing at Fenit in Kerry – and Liam O’Flaherty fictionalises this event at “Carra Point” and “Sallytown” (Tralee).
Events around the Free State troop landing and its sequel are seen through the eyes of Sallytown’s defenders and its townspeople, clerical and lay.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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