Edna’s books were burned, or were they?

This article is from page 9 of the 2006-07-18 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 9 JPG

A WAR of words has begun between a Clare author and members of the clergy over how her first book was treated when it was published in 1960.

A priest in the parish of Scariff has rubbished claims that Edna O’Brien’s first novel, The Country Girls , was burned by the local priest.

The book caused a storm of controversy and it was banned by the censorship board for its depiction of sexuality as well as been condemned by the Archbishop of Dublin.

The burning of the book in the grounds of O’Brien’s local church has become part of the author’s legend and is regularly quoted by lecturers teaching her work.

But this week, Scariff Parish Priest, Fr Pat Sexton, threw doubt on the story. “My information is the thing about the burning is totally untrue. Obviously, I was not there at the time but I’ve checked with some people and no one else has ever heard of it.”

Literature expert and journalist, Dublin-based cleric Fr Tom Stack, said that the “reference in question in nothing more than an unhappy invention.”

But the author herself maintains that the incident did happen. O’Brien said there were three copies of the book in the village.

“The Parish Priest rounded them up, plus their owners, plus some other people and they burned them in the garden or grounds of the church. My mother reported to me two vital factors – that several of the women fainted and then the opinion was that I should be kicked naked through the town.”

O’Brien said that the incident caused her hurt and anger. “Ever since, I was made to feel very ashamed of what I had written. It didn’t stop me starting to write the next book.”

The Tuamgraney born author was under the spotlight of controversy again more recently, when she published a book based on the murder of Imelda Riney in Whitegate by Brendan O’Donnell in 1994.

Critics accused her of making money on the back of tragedy when she published In the Forest in 2002.