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10 Facts About Blanaid Salkeld

1.

Blanaid Salkeld's father, Lt Colonel Jarlath ffrench-Mullen, a doctor in the Indian Medical Service, was a friend of Rabindranath Tagore and introduced her to the poetry of Keats.

2.

Blanaid Salkeld married Henry Salkeld in 1902 and spent the next six years in India with her husband, who worked in the Indian Civil Service, living in Dacca and Bombay.

3.

Blanaid Salkeld returned to Dublin with her son Cecil, in 1910 following the death of her husband in 1909.

4.

Blanaid Salkeld played the lead role in George Fitzmaurice's three-act play The Country Dressmaker.

5.

Blanaid Salkeld started writing verse plays in the 1930s, and one of these, Scarecrow Over the Corn, was staged in 1941 at the Gate Theatre with stage sets designed by Louis le Brocquy.

6.

Blanaid Salkeld contributed numerous book reviews to The Dublin Magazine, Irish Writing, and The Bell.

7.

Blanaid Salkeld translated Akhmatova, Bruisov, Blok, and Pushkin from the Russian into English.

8.

Blanaid Salkeld founded the Irish Women's Writers' Club with Dorothy Macardle in 1933.

9.

Blanaid Salkeld co-founded the Gayfield Press with her son, Cecil, in 1937.

10.

Blanaid Salkeld's work is considered overlooked within the canon of early 20th century Irish poetry, as it was neither of the Celtic revival or modernist.