‘Revolutionary’ legacy of Irish writer Edna O’Brien remembered at funeral mass

Family and friends of the novelist were among those who gave readings and paid tribute during the service in her native Tuamgraney.

The coffin of Irish writer Edna O’Brien travels by boat across Lough Derg from Mountshannon to Holy Island in County Clare ahead of her burial (Niall Carson/PA) (PA Wire)

Irish writer Edna O’Brien’s “revolutionary intervention in Irish fiction” has been remembered during her funeral mass, which was attended by Ireland’s President Michael D Higgins.

Family and friends of the late novelist gave readings and paid tribute during the service at St Joseph’s Church in her native Tuamgraney, Co Clare on Saturday.

O’Brien, a novelist, short-story writer, memoirist, poet and playwright, died aged 93 last month after a long illness.

The funeral mass was also attended by Independent Clare TD Michael McNamara and Commandant Claire Mortimer, who represented Taoiseach Simon Harris and Tanaiste Micheal Martin.

Higgins was joined by his wife Sabina Coyne, who appeared emotional throughout the service.

During the procession of symbols, family members and friends laid items which held significance for O’Brien.

Her grandson Oscar presented the Irish author’s French Legion of Honour to represent a “lifetime of extraordinary achievement”, which included an honorary damehood and a Torc of the Saoi, the highest honour that can be awarded by Aosdana, an Irish association of elite artists.

Flowers from the garden of her childhood home, Drewsborough House, were also offered.

Other items included a Buddha statue offered by her niece, to symbolise that O’Brien was a “deeply spiritual woman whose curiosity and open heart led her to many faiths throughout her lifetime”, including Buddhism.

Her Irish literary inspirations were honoured by a friend who carried a copy of James Joyce’s Ulysses, while another presented a portrait of the late author Samuel Beckett, a friend of O’Brien.

Her son Marcus Gebler told mourners the purpose of his mother’s writing was to “illuminate, inspire, give courage” to those who struggled to speak out.

The most important thing you can do is to give him love as much as possible and all the time, and that is what we got from her

Edna O'Brien's son Marcus Gebler

He said: “In the last week I’ve been moved and overwhelmed by the tributes and affection for our mother from so many different people in so many countries.

“For many writers, it is their first book that is their best, and they never quite live up to that initial curated distillation of their own life.

“But in our mother’s case, her development as a writer was an arc continually ascending from the lives of young women in 1940s Ireland, through age, experience and suffering, to 1990s’ Bosnia or Nigeria in 2014.”

On the purpose of her writing, he added: “I believe in her case, it has been and will remain, to illuminate, inspire, give courage to and speak for those who are rendered dumb.”

Gebler also read a poem that he wrote for his mother, which received a round of applause.

He became emotional as he finished by recalling what a doctor told him after his son Oscar was born, saying: “The most important thing you can do is to give him love as much as possible and all the time, and that is what we got from her.”

O’Brien’s friend, Scottish novelist Andrew O’Hagan, paid tribute to her legacy, saying she changed the perception of Irish female writers.

He said: “We’ve heard a lot in the last two weeks about Edna’s revolutionary intervention in Irish fiction, her opening up of the novel to the truths of desire and the complexities of interior female complexity.

“But we must remember, as we celebrate her now, the hard road she had to navigate, even amongst her heroes.

“‘Men are governed by lines of intellect’, James Joyce wrote, ‘Women by curves of emotion’.

“But Edna made it her task on an international stage both to embody and to defy that thought, marrying the intellectual to the sensual, coupling the emotional and the thoughtful, raising the bar on common experience and on inheritance, our pride of worth.”

O’Hagan spoke about “how funny” she was, saying: “Her comic engine was always turning, even, or especially, in the midst of of anxiety – the comic engine, along with those other great turbines of creativity, outrage, ambition.

“But at the centre of it all was a talent so singular that nothing could countermand it, nor age, nor illness, or lack of stamina.

“She lived inside her prose like no writer I’ve ever known. Her gifts were both solid and ethereal, like the sprites in her favourite play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

“Yet they were rooted in the history and the byways of Ireland, which was forever the landscape of her imagination, the seedbed of her writing and her soul.”

Among the songs performed during the service was the hymn The Lord’s my Shepherd, the traditional Irish song Danny Boy and a rendition of An Irish Blessing to close the service.

O’Brien’s remains were taken to St Joseph’s Church on Friday for the reposal and she will be buried on Holy Island after the funeral service.

The writer was best known for her portrayal of women’s lives against repressive expectations of Irish society.

Her first novel, The Country Girls, was published in 1960 and became part of a trilogy that was banned in Ireland for their references to sex and social issues.

O’Brien, who had lived in London since 1958, described an outraged response from people in Ireland in contrast to the book’s international success.