The Republican PoetessCavanagh MacDowell (Maeve) A folder co...

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€1,000 - €1,500

The Republican Poetess

Cavanagh MacDowell (Maeve) A folder containing a large collection of her original poetry, many signed, probably intended for a collected edition, with about 75 pages typescript (some duplication), including a poem in memory of Hermann Goertz, and about 15 items in manuscript, some signed, many with corrections, also a typescript list of her works and some other items.

* The folder also includes a sheet in Cavanagh's hand headed 'The night before 1916 in Liberty Hall', giving an important eyewitness account of the scene in Liberty Hall as Connolly tried to reassure Citizen Army members that the planned Rising had only been postponed. 'I remember how indignantly they exclaimed "Ah they'll never do anything". But Connolly soothed them down and told us all things would go on and it would be only a part postponement. He then showed us along the passages & into one of the rooms, the girls were still venting their disappointment. Dr. Lynn was there - Helena Molony & Mary Perotz ..' [See R.M. Fox's chapter on Cavanagh in his 'Rebel Irishwomen', elsewhere in this sale, where some of this account is confirmed].

The folder also contains an incomplete letter in an unknown hand, apparently referring to an occasion when Mary MacSwiney prevented a letter from [Michael] Collins being given to [her brother] Terry, then towards the end of his hunger strike. [It has been reported elsewhere that Collins urged MacSwiney to call off his strike]. There is also a letter or draft letter in Cavanagh's hand to a newspaper about cock-fighting, and a few childish letters addressed to 'Dear Nan'.

The poetry is of mixed quality. Cavanagh was not a major poet, but she was not without talent, and the best items in this collection are certainly worth preserving. Maeve Cavanagh was an early member of the Gaelic League in Dublin; later she moved to Sligo and Derry. She began writing verses for The Peasant, edited by W.P. Ryan, and wrote for various Republican and left-wing papers after her return to Dublin around 1910. She was often in Liberty Hall, and on Easter Monday morning, 1916, she was sent to Waterford with James Connolly's message, 'We fight at noon'. By the time she was able to return to Dublin, it was all over.
Her brother, Ernest Cavanagh, drew cartoons for the Irish Worker, for which Maeve wrote the captions. He was shot dead by a British soldier while standing unarmed on the steps of Liberty Hall on Easter Tuesday 1916. As a collection, w.a.f. (1)

Provenance: From the family of Austin Stack.