# Katharine Tynan

Katharine Tynan (23 January 1859 – 2 April 1931) was an Irish writer, known mainly for her novels and poetry. After her marriage in 1893 to the Trinity College scholar, writer and barrister Henry Albert Hinkson (1865–1919) she usually wrote under the name Katharine Tynan Hinkson, or variations thereof. Tynan's younger sister Nora Tynan O'Mahony (née Tynan, 1866–1954) was also a poet and one of her three children, Pamela Hinkson (1900–1982), was also known as a writer. The Katharine Tynan Road in Belgard, Tallaght is named after her.

## Biography

Tynan was born the fifth of twelve children of Andrew Cullen Tynan , a prosperous farmer and cattle trader and later a Dublin alderman for the Irish Parliamentary Party, and Elizabeth Tynan (née Reilly). She grew up in Whitehall, Clondalkin and educated at the Dominican St Catherine's, a convent school in Drogheda. Her poetry was first published in 1875. She met and became friendly with the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins in 1886. Tynan went on to play a major part in Dublin literary circles, until she married and moved to England; later she lived at Claremorris, County Mayo when her husband was a magistrate from 1914 until 1919.
She worked for the Ladies' Land League, run by Anna Parnell, before turning to journalism, expressing her ardent support of Charles Stewart Parnell and Ireland. Her first volume of poems, Louise de la Vallière and other poems was published in 1885 and is still in print.
From June 1885 when they first met until around the time of her marriage in 1893, Tynan was a close associate of and regular correspondent with William Butler Yeats (who may have proposed marriage and been rejected). Tynan was also later a correspondent of Francis Ledwidge. She is said to have written over 100 novels. Her Collected Poems appeared in 1930; she also wrote five autobiographical volumes.
In 1888 Tynan met Dublin-born lawyer and classical scholar Henry Hinkson, and they married in London in 1893. In England she became a prolific poet and journalist. Tynan contributed to many periodicals and magazines such as the Jesuit published Studies, the Dominican published Irish Rosary, Irish Monthly, Hibernia and Dublin University Review. She wrote on the treatment of shop girls, unmarried mothers, infanticide, capital punishment and the education of the poor. From 1895 to 1930 she wrote more than 102 novels.
In 1911 the Hinkson/Tynan family moved to Castlebar, Co Mayo with their two sons and daughter when her husband was appointed Resident Magistrate there. Her politics swung away from her native country and towards England, especially when both of her sons volunteered to fight in World War I. She returned to England in 1919 and continued to write prolifically, including the production of a five-volume autobiography, and travelled extensively in Europe. Her daughter was the novelist Pamela Hinkson, and her son Giles A Hinckson was correspondent for The Times in Buenos Aires and Santiago.
Tynan died in Wimbledon, London aged 72, and is buried in Kensal Green Cemetery.

## Publications

* Louise de la Vallière (1885) poems
* Shamrocks (1887)
* Ballads & Lyrics (1891)
* Irish Love-Songs (1892)
* A Cluster of Nuts, Being Sketches Among My Own People (1894)
* Cuckoo Songs (1894)
* Miracle Plays (1895)
* The Land of Mist and Mountain (1895)
* The Way of a Maid (1895)
* Three Fair Maids, or the Burkes of Derrymore (c.1895) later Illustrated by G. Demain Hammond
* An Isle in the Water (1896)
* Any Woman (1896)
* Oh, What a Plague is Love! (1896)
* The Golden Lily (1899)
* The Dear Irish Girl (1899)
* Her Father's Daughter (1900)
* Poems (1901)
* A Daughter of the Fields (1901)
* A King's Woman (1902)
* Love of Sisters (1902)
* The Great Captain: A Story of the Days of Sir Walter Raleigh (1902)
* The Handsome Quaker, and other Stories (1902)
* The Adventures of Carlo (1903) illustrated by E. A. Cubitt
* The Luck of the Fairfaxes (1904)
* A Daughter of Kings (1905)
* Innocencies (1905) poems
* For the White Rose (1905)
* A Little Book for Mary Gill's Friends (1905)
* The Story of Bawn (1906)
* The Yellow Domino (1906)
* Book of Memory (1906)
* Dick Pentreath (1906)
* The Cabinet of Irish Literature. (4 volumes) (1906) editor, expansion of work by Charles Read
* The Rhymed Life of St Patrick (1907) Illustrated by Lyndsay Symington
* Twenty-One poems, selected by W. B. Yeats (Dun Emer Press, 1907)
* A Little Book of XXIV Carols (1907)
* Father Mathew (1908) biography of Theobald Mathew
* Experiences (1908)
* A Union of Hearts (1908)
* The House of the Crickets (1908)
* Ireland (1909)
* A Little Book for John O'Mahony's Friends (1909)
* The Book of Flowers (1909) with Frances Maitland
* Mary Gray (1909)
* A Girl of Galway
* The Rich Man
* A Red, Red Rose (c.1910)
* Heart O' Gold or the Little Princess
* The Story of Cecelia (1911)
* New Poems (1911)
* Princess Katharine (1911)
* Twenty-five Years: Reminiscences (1913)
* Irish Poems (1913)
* The Wild Harp (1913) poetry anthology, editor, illustrated by C. M. Watts
* A Mesalliance (1913)
* A Midsummer Rose (1913)
* The Daughter of the Manor (1914) illustrated by John Campbell
* A Shameful Inheritance (1914)
* The Flower of Peace (1914) poems
* Mary Beaudesert, V. S. (1915)
* Flower of Youth (1915) poems
* The Curse of Castle Eagle (1915)
* The House of the Foxes (1915) novel
* Joining the colours (1916)
* Lord Edward: A Study in Romance (1916)
* The Holy War (Great War Poems) 1916.
* The Middle Years (1916)
* Margery Dawe (1916) illustrated by Frank E. Wiles
* Late Songs (1917)
* Herb O'Grace (1918) poems
* The Sad Years (1918) tribute to Dora Sigerson
* The Years of the Shadow (1919)
* The Honourable Molly (1919)
* Denys the Dreamer (1920)
* The Handsome Brandons (1921) Illustrated by G. D. Hammond
* Bitha's Wonderful Year (1922)
* The Wandering Years (1922)
* Evensong (1922)
* White Ladies (1922)
* A Mad Marriage (1922) novel
* Memories (1924)
* Life in the Occupied Area (1925)
* The Man from Australia (1925)
* The Wild Adventure (1927)
* Twilight Songs (1927)
* The Face in the Picture (1927)
* Haroun of London (1927)
* Pat, the Adventurer (1928)
* The Respectable Lady (1928)
* The River (1929)
* Castle Perilous (1929)
* The Squire's Sweetheart (1930)
* Denise the Daughter (1930)
* Collected Poems (1930)
* The Admirable Simmons (1930)
* The Forbidden Way (1931)
* Philippa's Lover (1931)
* A Lonely Maid (1931)
* The Story of Our Lord (1932)
* The Other Man (1932)
* An International Marriage (1933)
* Londonderry Air (1935)
* The Briar Bush Maid
* A little radiant girl, illustrated by John Campbell
* A Passionate Pilgrim
* Maxims
* The Poems of Katharine Tynan (1963) edited by Monk Gibbon
* A Girls Song"