Maeve Binchy (31 page)
Authors: Piers Dudgeon
| 1993 | Photograph of Maeve by Richard Whitehead becomes part of the National Portrait Gallery Collection in London. |
| 1993 | Orion offer £500,000 advance for UK rights in Maeve’s new novel, The Glass Lake . |
| 1994 | The Glass Lake is published, about a woman who disappears, believed to have committed suicide, but she has left her family to start a new life. |
| 1995 | The film of Circle of Friends is premiered. |
| 1995 | Screenplays by Jim Culleton based on short stories by Maeve are produced under the title Troubled Hearts by Belltable Arts Centre, Limerick, Dublin. |
| 1995 | The Fifteenth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland repeals the constitutional prohibition of divorce, approved by referendum on 24 November 1995 and signed into law on 17 June 1996. |
| 1996 | Maeve’s short-story collection Cross Line s is published. |
| 1996 | Maeve’s short-story collection This Year It Will Be Different: And Other Stories is published. |
| 1996 | Maeve’s novel Evening Class is published, in which a group of people gather for an evening class at a high school. The class represents the chance to make a dream come true for each one of them. |
| 1997 | Maeve’s radio play The Visit broadcast by RTE Radio. |
| 1997 | The collection Finbar’s Hotel , to which Maeve is a contributor, is published. |
| 1998 | Maeve’s novel Tara Road is published, in which two women – one Irish, one American – try to improve their lives by trading houses. |
| 1998 | Maeve’s short-story collection The Return Journey is published. |
| 1999 | Maeve’s non-fiction book Aches & Pains is published. |
| 1999 | Maeve appears on The Oprah Winfrey Show in New York. |
| 1999 | Maeve receives the British Book Award for Lifetime Achievement. |
| 1999 | The collection Ladies’ Night at Finbar’s Hotel , to which Maeve is a contributor, is published. |
| 2000 | Maeve’s novel Scarlet Feather is published. Two friends who were caterers in real life – Cathy Scarlet and Tom Feather in the novel – tell amazing stories about the people they cater for. |
| 2000 | Maeve announces her retirement. |
| 2000 | Maeve receives a People of the Year Award. |
| 2001 | Maeve’s novel Scarlet Feather wins the W. H. Smith Book Award for Fiction. |
| 2001 | Maeve’s Wired to the Moon is produced at the Andrews Lane Theatre, Dublin. The play follows six characters who all allow problems in their lives to spiral out of control. The six stories are interwoven, as the characters try to come to terms with their dilemmas and confront the insecurities that cause them. |
| 2002 | Maeve’s novel Quentins , about the customers in a Dublin restaurant, is published. |
| 2002 | Maeve’s novella The Builders is published. |
| 2002 | Maeve is editor with Cathy Kelly and Marian Keyes of Irish Girls About Town . |
| 2002 | Maeve suffers a health crisis related to a heart condition. It inspires her to write the novel Heart and Soul . |
| 2004 | Maeve campaigns against the restriction of the automatic, constitutional right to citizenship of all of those born on the island of Ireland (unsuccessfully). |
| 2004 | Maeve’s novel Nights of Rain & Stars , a tale of vacationers in Greece who are linked by a shared tragedy, is published. |
| 2005 | The film of Maeve’s novel Tara Road is premiered. |
| 2005 | Maeve’s Surprise , a four-part radio drama, is broadcast. Maeve is a driving force behind the RTÉ Radio 1 Human Rights drama seasons. |
| 2005 | Maeve is one of the writers for She Was Wearing , a play produced at Smock Alley Theatre & Studio in Dublin. It’s a series of short, interconnecting monologues specially commissioned in response to Amnesty International’s Stop Violence Against Women campaign. |
| 2005 | Maeve Binchy has her portrait, by Maeve McCarthy, hung at the National Gallery in London. |
| 2006 | Maeve’s non-fiction book A Time to Dance is published. |
| 2006 | Maeve’s novella Star Sullivan is published. |
| 2006 | Maeve’s novel Whitehorn Woods is published. |
| 2007 | A film, How About You , is based on Maeve’s short story by the same name from the short-story collection titled This Year It Will Be Different: And Other Stories , but sometimes published as The Hard Core . The film stars Vanessa Redgrave, Joss Ackland, Brenda Fricker and Imelda Staunton. |
| 2007 | Maeve’s story ‘Anner House’ becomes a ninety-minute TV film written by Anne-Marie Casey. |
| 2007 | Maeve receives the Irish PEN Award, joining such luminaries as John B. Keane, Brian Friel, Edna O’Brien, William Trevor, John McGahern and Seamus Heaney. |
| 2007 | Maeve is awarded the University College Dublin Foundation Day Medal by her alma mater. |
| 2008 | Maeve’s sister Renie dies on 12 January. |
| 2008 | Maeve’s novel Heart & Soul , about a doctor who establishes a clinic in an under-served area while trying to juggle her own affairs, is published. |
| 2008 | Maeve’s non-fiction book The Maeve Binchy Writer’s Club is published. |
| 2009 | Maeve appears on The Meaning of Life TV chat show with Gay Byrne. |
| 2010 | Maeve’s novel Minding Frankie is published. It centres on a single father who enlists the aid of his neighbours to help raise his infant daughter. |
| 2010 | Maeve receives a lifetime achievement award from the Irish Book Awards. |
| 2011 | Maeve and Gordon make a cameo appearance together in RTÉ’s TV soap opera Fair City . |
| 2012 | Maeve’s novella Full House is published. |
| 2012 | Maeve dies from a heart attack at the Blackrock Clinic, County Dublin, on 30 July. |
| 2012 | Her last novel, A Week in Winter , is published in November. |
| | |
1
Maeve Binchy in interview with Donal O’Donoghue,
RTÉ Guide
(2010).
2
Maeve Binchy in
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl
, edited by John Quinn (Methuen, 1986).
3
Every biography and newspaper gives 1940 as the year in which she was born, and her age was given as seventy-two when she died in July 2012. But her birth certificate states plainly and unequivocally that she was born on 29 May 1939.
4
Maeve Binchy,
A Week in Winter
(Orion, 2012).
5
Donal Lynch,
Sunday Independent
, 2012.
6
Clifton School, which today is a private residence called Summerfield Lodge. Joyce taught there for a term.
7
The Martello tower at Sandycove has contained a museum dedicated to Joyce since Bloomsday 1962, though, as I write, cutbacks have reduced staffing to volunteer status.
8
The Binchy Archive, James Joyce Library, University College Dublin.
9
Interview with Jessica Simmons,
The Guardian
, November 2010.
10
Not to be confused with the novelist Daniel W. J. Binchy, who is Maeve’s first cousin. Daniel Anthony, Maeve’s uncle, was born in 1900
(though sometimes it is recorded as 1889) and became a scholar of Irish linguistics and early Irish law.
11
John Quinn (ed.),
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl
(Methuen, 1986).
12
Ibid.
13
Maeve Binchy,
Aches and Pains
(Orion, 1999).
14
Interview of Maeve Binchy with Mary Buscher,
Irish America
, 2001.
15
John Quinn (ed.),
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl
(Methuen, 1986).
16
Maeve Binchy: At Home in the World
(2010). Documentary directed by Sinéad O’Brien; produced by Noel Pearson. A Ferndale Films
production
for RTÉ.
17
Interview of Maeve Binchy with Mary Buscher,
Irish America
, 2001.
18
Maeve Binchy in
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl
, edited by John Quinn (Methuen, 1986).
19
Interview with Professor Declan Kiberd on the occasion at the Royal St George Yacht Club in Dún Laoghaire in January 2007 when Professor Kiberd, at that time Professor of Anglo-Irish Literature at UCD, took to the podium to praise a national treasure. Maeve Binchy was being conferred with the Irish PEN/A. T. Cross Literary Award, joining a distinguished roll-call of Irish writers who had received it before her, including John McGahern and Seamus Heaney. Declan Kiberd is now Professor of Irish Studies at Notre Dame University, USA.
20
Frank Budgen,
James Joyce and the Making of Ulysses
(Oxford University Press, 1972).
21
Jack Matthews,
Newsday
, March 1995.
22
Founder member of Fianna Fáil, the Republican Party, and Taoiseach (Prime Minister) from 1959–66.
23
From 1959–65 the leader of Fine Gael, a centre-right party in the Republic, and a great orator.
24
The Irish Citizen Army of James Connolly and 200 members of another revolutionary body, Cumann na mBan.
25
See Appendix A.
26
The Literary and Historical Society was founded as a student
debating
society (known as the L&H) in 1855–6 by John Henry Newman (1801–90), rector of the Catholic University of Ireland, founded in 1854, to be chartered as University College Dublin in 1908. The society ceased to function in December 1880 and emerged again in November 1882 as the Union Literary Society (until 1883). Many members of the society went on to play important roles in public, professional, ecclesiastical, business and judicial life in Ireland.
27
See Appendix B.
28
The six counties of Northern Ireland are Londonderry, Antrim, Tyrone, Fermanagh, Armagh and Down.
29
‘Art straight from Carole’s kitchen table’,
West End Extra
, New Journal Enterprises.
30
Interview with Professor Declan Kiberd on the occasion in January 2007 when Maeve Binchy was conferred with the Irish PEN/A.T. Cross Literary Award.
31
The Light of Experience
(BBC, 1977).
32
Andrew G. Marshall,
The Independent
, September 1998.
33
See allusion to Jean-Paul Sartre as Maeve’s life guide in a letter from Gordon Snell (Chapter Seven: London Apprentice).
34
Andrew G. Marshall,
The Independent
, September 1998.
35
Jack Kerouac quoted by the late Al Aronowitz in
The Blacklisted Journalist
.
36
Andrew G. Marshall,
The Independent
, September 1998.
37
She would tackle it in her journalism and also in
Echoes
, where David Power can become a doctor like his father easily enough, but it is very
hard for Clare O’Brien, whose father runs a sweetshop, to be anything at all.
38
Now part of St Leonards-Mayfield, an independent Catholic school.
39
Katharine Webber,
Publishers Weekly
, October 1992.
40
Margaret Bernstein,
Everywoman
, May 1999.
41
Ibid.
42
Felicity Hayes-McCoy,
The Guardian
, July 2012.
43
Chanukkah, the Jewish festival of rededication, also known as the
festival
of lights, is an eight-day festival beginning on the 25th day of the Jewish month of Kislev (29/30 days within November–December in the Gregorian calendar).
44
Lewis Burke Frumkes,
The Writer
, February 2000.
45
Acorn Media Publishing Inc., 2001.
46
Robert Graves, introduction to
The Sufis
by Idries Shah (Doubleday, 1964).
47
Undercover Portraits: Maeve Binchy
(2000), produced and directed by Michael Garvey. An Orpheus production for RTÉ.
48
Acorn Media Publishing Inc., 2001.
49
Good Housekeeping
, September 1996.
50
Undercover Portraits: Maeve Binchy
(2000), produced and directed by Michael Garvey. An Orpheus production for RTÉ.
51
Amanda Cable,
The People
, October 1999.
52
Mary Kenny,
Daily Telegraph
, July 2012.
53
Anne McHardy,
The Guardian
, July 2012.
54
Ireland’s national radio and television broadcaster.
55
A famous women’s magazine programme first broadcast by the BBC in 1946 and still going today.
56
CBS
This Morning
. Burelle’s Information Services, 1995.
57
Maeve Binchy: At Home in the World
(2010). Documentary directed by Sinéad O’Brien; produced by Noel Pearson. A Ferndale Films
production
for RTÉ.
58
A Boxing Day 2012 tribute to Maeve Binchy on RTÉ Radio 1, the programme presented by Evelyn O’Rourke. Declan Kiberd, sometime Professor of Anglo-Irish Literature at University College Dublin, is now Professor of Irish Studies at Notre Dame University, USA.
59
Margaret Barry (1917–89) was a traditional Irish singer and banjo player.
60
Donal Foley,
Three Villages: An Autobiography
, with an introduction by Maeve Binchy and Mary Maher (Ballylough Books, 1977 and 2003).
61
Interview by Dina Rabinovitch for
The Guardian
, September 1998. The Omagh bombing occurred the previous month.
62
See Appendix C.
63
Charles Dickens,
Sketches by ‘Boz’, Illustrative of Every-day Life and Every-day People
(1836–7).
64
Declan Kiberd,
Ulysses and Us: The Art of Everyday Living
(Faber, 2009).
65
Professor Anthony Clare in
Dear Maeve
by Maeve Binchy (Poolbeg, 1995).
66
A Boxing Day 2012 tribute to Maeve Binchy on RTÉ Radio 1.
67
Irish Independent
, 1979.
68
Four strangers meet in a Greek taverna high above the village of Aghia Anna.
69
Maeve Binchy,
A Week in Winter
(Orion, 2012).
70
www.roisinmcauley.com/uncategorized/976/maeve-binchy/
71
Patsey Murphy,
Irish Times
, August 2012.
72
Besides writing TV adaptations, novels, essays, autobiographies and some forty stage plays, three of which were produced on Broadway (
The Au Pair Man
(1973), Da (1978), and
A Life
(1980)), Hugh Leonard was commissioned by the national broadcasting body RTÉ to write the TV play
Insurrection
to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising.
73
Undercover Portraits: Maeve Binchy
(2000), produced and directed by Michael Garvey. An Orpheus production for RTÉ.
74
Douglas Kennedy,
Irish Times
, August 2012.
75
John Calder,
The Garden of Eros
(Calder, 2013).
76
Undercover Portraits: Maeve Binchy
(2000), produced and directed by Michael Garvey. An Orpheus Production for RTÉ.
77
Mary Kenny,
Daily Telegraph
, July 2012.
78
Cliff Goodwin,
To Be a Lady: A Biography of Catherine Cookson
(Century, 1994).
79
‘Life in the Day of…’ feature in the
Sunday Times
.
80
In the parable of the vineyard, the labourers who worked least hours received the same reward as the labourers who worked most hours.
81
In America, after leaving Delacorte and Dell, Maeve Binchy was published by Dutton in hardcover and New American Library in paperback for
Scarlet Feather, Quentins,
and
Night of Rain and Stars,
all
New York Times
bestsellers in hardcover and paperback. She then moved, with her editor, Carole Baron, to Knopf and its paperback company Anchor for publication of
Whitethorn Woods
. They are her publishers to this day. Maeve’s last book,
A Week in Winter,
reached No. 1 in America in its first week on sale.
82
Andrew G. Marshall,
The Independent
, 1998.
83
Irish Times
, 18 April 1985.
84
Conan Kennedy,
Grandfather’s House: Monte Alverno, Dalkey, Co. Dublin
(Morrigan New Century, 2008).
85
Dalkey: An Anthology
, Volume 2, compiled by Frank Mullen; edited by Padraig Yeates (2009).
86
Anthony Kirby,
Christian Science Monitor
, 1999.
87
One, in decrepit condition, is available in the James Joyce Library at University College Dublin.
88
Daily Telegraph
, 1998.
89
Hester Riches,
Vancouver Sun
, 1994.
90
The Maeve Binchy Writer’s Club
includes twenty letters from Maeve, offering encouragement to aspiring writers, and contributions by Marian Keyes, Alison Walsh, Norah Casey, Paula Campbell, Ivy Bannister, Gerald Dawe, Jim Culleton, Ferdia McAnna and Julie Parsons.
91
RTÉ Radio 1 tribute to Maeve Binchy, presented by Evelyn O’Rourke, December 2012.
92
The King of Quizzical Island Digs Through the World
(Walker, 2011).
93
The literary associations of the hotel were enhanced when one of McNamara’s daughters married the poet Dylan Thomas. There is a bar named after him today.
94
Thomas Davis lecture by Dr Margaret MacCurtain in
Irish Country Towns
(Mercier, 1994).
95
Lamb Island, Clare Island and Maiden Rock.
96
The Hill of Tara is a World Heritage site just north of Dublin, regarded as one of the most important prehistoric sites in Europe.
97
Robert Graves,
The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth
(Faber, 1961).
98
‘Life in the Day of…’ feature in the
Sunday Times
.
99
Robert Graves,
The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth
(Faber, 1961).