Susan L. Mitchell

Susan Langstaff Mitchell (1866 – 1926) was an Irish writer and poet, known for her satirical verse.

Biography

She was born in Carrick-on-Shannon, County Leitrim, one of eight children of Michael Thomas Mitchell. Her father was manager of the Provincial Bank there. He died when she was six years old and she was sent to Dublin to be educated, while her mother, Kate (née Cullen, a prominent family from Manorhamilton), moved to Sligo in order to have her sons educated there. Susan Mitchell lived in Dublin with two comfortably-off aunts.[1]

In 1900 she travelled to London for treatment of a hearing problem associated with tuberculosis and stayed with John B. Yeats and his family. The illness was to remain with her all of her life. After her return to Dublin she worked as a journalist and became assistant editor of the Irish Homestead, under George Russell. Thus began a close friendship and professional relationship that would last until her death. She contributed essays, reviews, drama notes and poems, many pseudonymously. Her poems first appeared in the holiday feature of the Homestead each year, entitled "A Celtic Christmas." Some of her lyrics were contained in New Songs (1904), a collection edited by Russell which also contained pieces by Padraic Colum and Alice Milligan.[2]

A ballad which she wrote in 1905, "The Ballad of Shawe-Taylor and Hugh Lane", dealing with a controversy involving Hugh Lane, was described by Thomas Bodkin as "a delicious comic ballad, which she sang herself, in a pleasant throaty voice, at many gatherings in Dublin drawing-rooms and studios."[3]

She became acquainted with William Butler Yeats, Padraic Colum, George Moore and others.[4] Although she always had a touch of humour in her writing, she wrote a book-length study of Moore and his work that was not a little acerbic.[2]

She lived with her sister Jane (Jinny), an actress, and mother in Rathgar. Her mother dictated her memoirs to her, which were later published.[1]

She published her first book of poems, Aids to the Immortality of Certain Persons in Ireland, in 1908. Its most successful piece was a parody of Rudyard Kipling's "Recessional" (Kipling, as an apologist for Empire, was fair game for Irish nationalists), entitled "Ode to the British Empire". This book was re-issued in an enlarged edition in 1913, followed by The Living Chalice.[5]

From 1923 she was sub-editor at the Irish Statesman, again under George Russell. In the last two and a half years of her life she wrote over two hundred pieces for this publication.[2]

She died at the age of sixty of an illness that developed into pneumonia.[6] She was buried in Mount Jerome Cemetery. Her death affected Russell profoundly - he found literary creation difficult for over a year after her death.[2]

References

  1. 1 2 Hilary Pyle: The Sligo-Leitrim World of Kate Cullen, The Woodfield Press, Dublin, 2008. ISBN 0-9528453-2-6
  2. 1 2 3 4 Gonzalez, Alexander G. (2006). Irish women writers: an A-to-Z guide. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 225. ISBN 0-313-32883-8.
  3. ↑ Kain, Richard M (1972). Susan L Mitchell. United States: Bucknell University Press. ISBN 0-8387-7768-6.
  4. ↑ Boylan, Henry (1998). A Dictionary of Irish Biography, 3rd Edition. Dublin: Gill and MacMillan. p. 280. ISBN 0-7171-2945-4.
  5. ↑ Susan L Mitchell by Richard M Kain (1972) p. 47
  6. ↑ "Obituary". Irish Times. 13 March 1926. p. 4.

External links

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