This blog post is dedicated to Marcella & Keith Flanagan, Katharine’s relatives and my life-long friends
***
It was a song I learnt in school and one, I’m sure, most of you know. All in the April Evening has a beautiful melody and the words touched something in my childish heart, something most of the songs that were inflicted on us at the time most certainly didn’t do. It was only many years later that I discovered that the writer of the poem that forms the lyrics of the song, was Katharine Tynan, and that she was related to my next door neighbour and life-long friend!
So who was she?
Katharine was born in Clondalkin, Dublin, on 23rd January, 1859. She was one of twelve children and grow up on her father’s dairy farm. From age 6 to 14, she attended the Dominican Convent of St Catherine of Siena, Drogheda, and even considered life in a religious order. Continue reading “Celebrating Irish Women Authors: Katharine Tynan Hickson”
