The House of Gold Paperback - 2013

Son of a Fenian father, Liam O'Flaherty (Liam Flaithearta),1896 - 1984, was born in Inishmore, the biggest of the Aran Islands, off Ireland's Atlantic coast. He became one of the most distinguished and prolific writers, in Irish and English, of his generation and was one of the major figures of the Irish Literary Renaissance. Abandoning an early intention to join the priesthood, he joined the British Army, under his mother's surname and was wounded the Western Front. After the war, he traveled to South America, Turkey, Canada and the Soviet Union, holding a variety of jobs before entering the United States illegally in 1920. He joined the Communist Party there, a move that determined the politics he supported for most of his life. He returned to Ireland in 1921, at the height of the War of Independence. His ideas for Ireland's future differed radically from those of Sinn Fin. Two days following the foundation of the Irish Free State, he and some followers occupied and held for four days the Rotunda building in Dublin, flying the red flag in a failed attempt at socialist revolution. Shortly afterwards O'Flaherty made his way to London where he wrote short stories in Irish. However, this early work was badly received, prompting him to write henceforth mainly in English. His first novel, The Neighbour's Wife, was published in 1923 and was followed by a stream of novels, short stories, and poems. The House of Gold (1929) has the distinction of being the first of many literary works to be banned by the newly constituted Irish Censorship of Publications Board in 1929. Subsequent works of his were to suffer the same fate. His writing combines a graphic and striking naturalism, acute psychological analysis, poetry and biting satire together with an abiding sympathy for the common man and anger against injustice. The powerful ideological substratum of the writings of this lifetime Marxist is seldom noted or commented upon. Liam O'Flaherty died on 7 September 1984, aged 88, in Dublin. A memorial garden in his native village of Gort na gCapall, Inishmore, commemorates the life and work of this literary giant.