20 Facts About Frank O'Connor

Frank O'Connor wrote poetry, dramatic works, memoirs, journalistic columns and features on aspects of Irish culture and history, criticism, long and short fiction, biography, and travel books.

Frank O'Connor is most widely known for his more than 150 short stories and for his memoirs.

Frank O'Connor's childhood was strongly shaped by his mother, who supplied much of the family's income by cleaning houses, and his father was unable to keep steady employment due to alcoholism.

Frank O'Connor adored his mother and was bitterly resentful of his father.

When his mother was seventy, Frank O'Connor was horrified to learn from his own doctor that she had suffered for years from chronic appendicitis, which she had endured with great stoicism, as she had never had the time nor the money to see a doctor.

In 1918 Frank O'Connor joined the First Brigade of the Irish Republican Army and served in combat during the Irish War of Independence.

Frank O'Connor opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 and joined the Anti-Treaty IRA during the Irish Civil War, working in a small propaganda unit in Cork City.

Frank O'Connor was one of twelve thousand Anti-Treaty combatants who were interned by the government of the new Irish Free State.

In February 1923, Frank O'Connor was imprisoned in Cork City Gaol and in April moved to Gormanston, County Meath where he was held until just before Christmas.

War is a major theme in most stories of Frank O'Connor's first published collection, Guests of the Nation, 1931.

Frank O'Connor worked first in Sligo and later under Geoffrey Phibbs in Wicklow.

In 1935, Frank O'Connor became a member of the board of directors of the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, founded by Yeats and other members of the Irish National Theatre Society.

Frank O'Connor spent much of the 1950s in the United States, although it was always his intention to return eventually to Ireland.

Frank O'Connor had a stroke while teaching at Stanford University in 1961, and he later died from a heart attack in Dublin, Ireland on 10 March 1966.

Frank O'Connor was buried in Deans Grange Cemetery on 12 March 1966.

In 1939 Frank O'Connor married Evelyn Bowen : they had two sons and a daughter.

Frank O'Connor married, secondly, Harriet Rich of Baltimore, whom he met while lecturing at Northwestern University.

Frank O'Connor was perhaps best known for his varied and comprehensive short stories but for his work as a literary critic, essayist, travel writer, translator and biographer.

Frank O'Connor's career began in 1922 and accelerated with the appearance of poetry in translation, articles on early Irish poets, book reviews by stories and original poetry.

Frank O'Connor continued his autobiography through his time with the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, which ended in 1939, in his book, My Father's Son, which was published in 1968, posthumously.