‘We are all in her debt’: Writers pay tribute to Clare native Edna O’Brien

Tributes are continuing to pour in for Edna O’Brien, the pioneering Clare writer, who died aged 93 after a long illness. 

Best known for her sharp observations on the repression of women in a conservative society and the erotic adventures of young women in the fifties, O’Brien passed away on July 27 in London at the age of 93. 

Originally from Tuamgraney in Co Clare, she studied pharmacy in Dublin before marrying Ernest Gébler who she followed to London in the mid-fifties. In London, she wrote The Country Girls in three weeks - a novel which propelled her to fame when it was published in 1960. 

The first instalment in a trilogy, the novel told the story of girls leaving behind their conservative home to live their lives unapologetically in Dublin. A book which was banned in Ireland for obscenity - and even burned by priests in her home town. 

O’Brien wrote for more than 60 years and published twenty books, as well as several short stories and plays. 

The writer once said that she will be buried in her mother’s family grave on Lough Derg.

“A lovely grave on Lough Derg... It’s a very wild grave,” she told The Irish Times in 2019. 

Since the sad news broke out, tributes have been pouring in for the legendary O’Brien, who has been described as “fearless and fiercely intelligent”. 

Writer Donal Ryan, whose grandmother was “distantly related” to O’Brien, paid in tribute: “She had a kind of mythical, heroic presence in my family's background because she was distantly related to my grandmother, May Barry, who babysat her as a teenager in Scariff. 

“My grandmother's library of banned books, which she ran from the early sixties from her farmhouse kitchen, began with The Country Girls. Edna was one of the great writers of the past century. All of her work was so beautifully wrought, full of grace and power and deep insight. Her devastating ability to tear away layers of artifice to reveal her subjects' true nature was unrivalled. She was fearless and fiercely intelligent, and very kind. We are all in her debt.”

The author Eoin Devereux also paid tribute to O'Brien, whom he described as a "towering presence" in Irish literature. 

“From Tuamgreany in County Clare, Edna O’Brien was a towering presence in Irish Literature. Her works including The Country Girls and The Love Object exposed a society that was patriarchal, theocratic and particularly cruel to women. As well as being an accomplished writer of fiction and drama, O’Brien’s scholarship on James and Nora Joyce will ensure her lasting legacy," he said.

Christine Anne Foley, who recently published her debut novel Bodies, was too inspired by the fierce voice of O'Brien.