14 Facts About Constantine Fitzgibbon

Major Robert Louis Constantine Lee-Dillon FitzGibbon RSL was an American-born Irish-British historian, translator and novelist.

Constantine Fitzgibbon's father, Commander Robert Francis Lee-Dillon FitzGibbon, RN, was Irish, and his mother, Georgette Folsom, daughter of George Winthrop Folsom, was an American heiress from Lenox, Massachusetts.

Constantine Fitzgibbon was brought up in the United States and France before moving to England with his mother, his parents having divorced when he was very young.

Constantine Fitzgibbon left aged 16 and travelled independently in Europe, where he studied at the University of Munich and University of Paris, becoming fluent in French and German and acquiring a sound knowledge of their literatures.

Constantine Fitzgibbon won a scholarship to Exeter College, Oxford to read modern languages in 1937, but left in May 1940, after the fall of France, to join the army.

Constantine Fitzgibbon did not complete his degree before the war and chose not to return to Oxford afterwards.

Constantine Fitzgibbon lived in Italy for a time, where he tried and failed to write a biography of Norman Douglas, a distant kinsman.

Constantine Fitzgibbon made programmes for BBC radio, including documentaries about British fascism, the Blitz, and the 1930s hunger marches.

Constantine Fitzgibbon was a regular contributor to newspapers in the UK and Ireland, and for many years wrote for the magazine Encounter.

Constantine Fitzgibbon's credo was that no political group that resorted to locking its opponents up in camps was any good.

Constantine Fitzgibbon refused to travel to Spain while Franco was alive.

Constantine Fitzgibbon later became an Irish citizen and lived in County Dublin.

Constantine Fitzgibbon then married Marion Gutmann in 1960, with whom he had a son, Francis, born in 1961.

Constantine Fitzgibbon adopted Marjorie's son, Peter FitzGibbon, from her former marriage.