{"id":623329,"date":"2026-09-13T11:10:17","date_gmt":"2026-09-13T11:10:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/623329\/"},"modified":"2026-09-13T11:10:17","modified_gmt":"2026-09-13T11:10:17","slug":"the-five-decade-love-story-of-a-forgotten-irish-literary-power-couple-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/623329\/","title":{"rendered":"The five-decade love story of a forgotten Irish literary power couple \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The name of Padraic Colum may still be familiar to some, as the author of much-loved poems such as A Drover or An Old Woman of the Roads, as a playwright, and a highly successful author of children\u2019s stories. In contrast, the career of his wife Mary Maguire Colum<\/a> is now largely forgotten in Ireland, but for many decades she was an influential reviewer and critic in the United States<\/a>, feared for her rapier wit by F Scott Fitzgerald<\/a> and Ernest Hemingway<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Telling their five-decade love story in my new biography Mary & Padraic Colum: Lives and the Dream (UCD<\/a> Press) has become a chronicle of the cultural and political foment of early 20th-century Ireland, James Joyce<\/a>\u2019s emigre circle in 1930s Paris, and the hotbed intellectual and literary life after the first World War through to mid-century New York<\/a>. <\/p>\n

It is also the culmination of four hugely enjoyable years of literary hunting. That quest has brought me to archives held in the Berg collection at the majestic New York Public Library (NYPL) on Fifth Avenue, and collections at Binghamton University in up-state New York, among many other places. I\u2019ve traced the steps of the Colums from their first home in New York, a tiny flat in Beekman Place overlooking the East River, to the elegant apartment building at 415 Central Park West where, in the early 1960s, singer Nina Simone lived just one floor upstairs.<\/p>\n

But the most exciting discovery came in Dublin as a result of a meeting planned with Tony Moore, literary executor for the estate of Mary and Padraic Colum, to discuss what archival materials still existed in the family\u2019s possession.<\/p>\n

\u201cGive yourself some time,\u201d read Tony\u2019s text, \u201cI will have things ready. There is a lot that I think may be of interest and use to you. I will have the kettle on.\u201d The \u201cthings\u201d were in a large suitcase, brim-full of folders and bags of papers, including a large cloth bag packed with manuscript papers. What emerged was a treasure trove of some 500 early letters between Padraic and Mary, composed between the years 1907 and 1913.<\/p>\n

That they still exist at all is testimony to how much these letters mattered to their first recipients, Mary and Padraic themselves. But they survived due to the care extended by the Colum family since Mary and Padraic\u2019s emigration to the United States in 1914. <\/p>\n

Most recently, the letters were preserved and some transcribed by the late M\u00e1ire (\u201cMaisie\u201d) Colum O\u2019Sullivan, Padraic\u2019s niece and literary executor of the Colums\u2019 estate until her death in 2011. Maisie had three children, Cian, Cl\u00edona and Aodh. Cl\u00edona, Tony\u2019s wife, succeeded her mother as executor, and sadly died in 2021. I am delighted to record that the letters have now been given to Longford County Library and Archives to form part of their Colum archive.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Classical echoes \u2013 An Irishman\u2019s Diary on Padraic Colum and HomerOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Of these letters, a third are written by Padraic, two thirds by Mary; the disproportion points to the very different circumstances of their lives, especially between 1907 and 1909 when Mary\u2019s loneliness as a student teacher in Dundalk made her an eager correspondent to her Dublin friend. Some clusters of letters were sent when one or other was travelling. For example, in summer 1909, Mary penned excited accounts of a short trip abroad to a convent school in Blumenthal, Holland (where a fellow resident was one Rose Fitzgerald of Boston, later Kennedy).<\/p>\n

Padraic\u2019s life was a much busier one, as Abbey playwright, published poet and essayist. His (at first short and then noticeably longer) letters to Mary are sometimes sent from his lodgings in Dublin, but he wrote mostly away from home: from the houses of friends such as journalist and writer Seumas O\u2019Kelly in Naas, or Jack B Yeats<\/a> and his wife Cottie in Greystones; from workplaces such as Scoil \u00c9anna in Grange House Rathfarnham or the office of The Irish Review; and from visits to his family in Longford.<\/p>\n

\"PhotographPhotograph of Mary Colum taken to mark Guggenheim award, 1930. Image courtesy of Padraic and Mary Colum Collection, Binghamton University Libraries Special Collections. \"PhotographPhotograph of Padraic Colum, inscribed \u2018to my cousin\u2019 (to Mary Maguire), undated [c. 1909]. Image courtesy of Padraic and Mary Colum Collection, Binghamton University Libraries Special Collections. <\/p>\n

These letters provide fascinating insights into their young adult lives. We see Padraic\u2019s famous break from the Abbey Theatre<\/a> and his troubled relationship with other journalist colleagues on The Irish Review. Mary\u2019s letters provide a remarkable and often moving insight into a young woman\u2019s dreams and frustrations, made even more compelling by her unflinching self-reflection and her sardonic wit. The annoying persistence in Padraic\u2019s life of an old flame, Sylvia Dryhurst Lynd, led to one especially pithy line, penned by Mary in 1911: \u201cMy last most violent attack of Lynditis twisted my vision.\u201d<\/p>\n

Their ambition, resilience and idealism jump from the pages of their letters. Researching their early years in Ireland, I\u2019ve come to see how both Mary and Padraic exemplify the \u201cvivid faces\u201d \u2013 to quote both WB Yeats<\/a> and Roy Foster \u2013 of a revolutionary generation, whose energy and determination, in the face of burdens inherited from their unwise elders, are moving and inspiring to follow.<\/p>\n

From the outset, Mary\u2019s ambition for Padraic\u2019s literary career is obvious from her letters, as is its very attractive appeal to Padraic. In an early letter written in November 1907 (when Mary is 23 and Padraic almost 26), Mary sharply admonishes him for having burnt some correspondence from another, ill-fated romance. She writes: \u201cYou should of course have sent me those three letters instead of burning them, and besides you should never burn ruthlessly any of the productions of your pen. There\u2019s your hopeless want of egoism… You should always have an eye to future biographers and especially when writing to me, because I preserve all your letters \u2013 for the future collectors and writers of course!\u201d<\/p>\n

Reading those lines in a Dublin kitchen well over a century later was an electric experience. <\/p>\n

But one of the questions that puzzled me for a long time was why Mary so frequently addressed Padraic as \u201ccousin\u201d (a term which he also used, including in an inscription to a photograph to her). At first, I thought that term of address may have offered a useful protection against curious eyes in the Dundalk convent. It certainly gave the forthright Mary what she gleefully termed \u201cthe liberties in instructing you, that my kinship gives me\u201d. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0An Irishwoman\u2019s Diary: The New York life of Mary Maguire ColumOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

But then I realised the term also has a distinct literary origin. Elizabeth Barrett Browning\u2019s 1856 verse novel Auroa Leigh, much loved by Mary, features a heroine who writes lengthy missives to her \u201ccousin-friend\u201d Romney Leigh, and the example of Browning\u2019s Aurora (whose struggles end with a happy romantic ending) was eagerly seized upon by her Irish reader.<\/p>\n

\"SketchSketch of the Colums by John Butler Yeats from letter to Padraic Colum, undated [c June 1921]. Image: Courtesy of The Henry W and Albert A Berg Collection of English and American Literature, New York Public Library \"SketchSketch of Padraic Colum, 1924, by Patrick Tuohy (1894-1930). Image: Courtesy of UCD Library Special Collections <\/p>\n

The term \u201ccousin\u201d also underlined the special kind of intellectual kinship they both felt. These early letters make touchingly clear how their friendship allowed them a precious space to write of dreams and fears that could only be shared with each other. But above all, the correspondence tells the story of a young couple falling in love. From being friends and confidantes, linked by family connections and more subtly by similar family loss, their relationship changed quite dramatically in the summer of 1910 \u2013 and reading their letters, I could trace when and why.<\/p>\n

Love triangles, I discovered, played a key part in the turn from \u201cfriends\u201d to \u201cbeloveds\u201d; not only Sylvia Lynd, but also the rival, at times obsessive, interest in Mary from Thomas MacDonagh, which helped to secure Mary and Padraic\u2019s mutual declaration of love. <\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

Mary and Padraic went on to have busy and rewarding careers in the United States. Mary received two Guggenheim fellowships in the 1930s, and her photograph from the Guggenheim files illustrates well her vibrant, commanding presence. While the adjective for Mary which one encounters most frequently from others was \u201cformidable\u201d, Padraic\u2019s was \u201cgentle\u201d. He was a deeply generous champion to many, often at the expense of his own career, and the long list includes novelist James Joyce, actress M\u00e1ire Nic Shiubhlaigh, poet Lola Ridge and artist Patrick Tuohy. His death made front-page news in the New York Times<\/a> on January 12th, 1972, under the heading \u201cPadraic Colum, 90, Irish Poet, Essayist and Folklorist, Dead.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Lives and loves: the sexual side of the RisingOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The most exciting visual discovery came from the wonderful archives held in the Berg Collection in NYPL, papers which I am almost certain that Padraic sold in order to cover the costs of Mary\u2019s funeral in New York, in 1957, and subsequent burial in Ireland. It appears in his correspondence with artist John Butler Yeats<\/a> (father of William, Lily, Lollie and Jack). Also a fellow New York resident, Yeats had become a close friend of both Padraic and Mary. In a short letter written in 1921, he includes a wonderful doodle-like sketch of the couple, capturing their energy and ambition and, in the case of Padraic to Mary at least, evident loving admiration. Yeats\u2019s accompanying comment, however, unwittingly attests also to the starkly different professional opportunities open to the couple. Addressing Padraic, he writes: \u201cWhen you next publish a volume come to me and I will make a sketch of you. I wish Mrs Colum would publish something that I might do her for a frontispiece\u201d (he never did).<\/p>\n

Few photos survive of the Colums together, but one was published in Life Magazine in 1948, as part of Robert W Kelley\u2019s feature on New Hampshire\u2019s MacDowell Colony for artists, a place which Mary and Padraic visited on many occasions. The magazine\u2019s accompanying caption does less than justice to the gendered scene: \u201cPadraic Colum and wife Mary work separately. But sometimes, to collaborate on a current project, Padraic pays wife a visit.\u201d What is more striking is the lovely visual echo in Padraic\u2019s enraptured gaze of the image of the couple sketched by John Butler Yeats, decades before. <\/p>\n

\"StudioStudio photograph of Mary Maguire Colum as a young woman, undated [c 1907]. Photograph: Courtesy of Padraic and Mary Colum Collection, Binghamton University Libraries Special Collections <\/p>\n

When I first discovered the Yeats sketch in the Berg collection at NYPL, I knew I had found the cover of my future book. Now, as I hand the Colums back to literary history, I hope their place there will be a more secure one, with their lives and dreams appreciated, and \u2013 the hope of every writer \u2013 their works read anew.<\/p>\n

Mary and Padraic Colum: Lives and the Dream by Margaret Kelleher is published by UCD Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The name of Padraic Colum may still be familiar to some, as the author of much-loved poems such…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":623330,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[71185,93,104747,10171,61,60,155221,27195,264711,4320,12167,5762,115,102923,976],"class_list":["post-623329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-abbey-theatre","tag-entertainment","tag-ernest-hemingway","tag-f-scott-fitzgerald","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-jack-b-yeats","tag-james-joyce","tag-john-butler-yeats","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-times","tag-ucd","tag-united-states","tag-wb-yeats","tag-weekendreview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=623329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623329\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/623330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=623329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=623329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=623329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}