Seumas O'Kelly (1881 – 14 November 1918) was an Irish journalist, fiction writer, and playwright. Born in

Loughrea Loughrea ( ; ), is a town in County Galway, Ireland. It lies to the north of a range of wooded hills, the Slieve Aughty Mountains and Lough Rea, the lake from which it takes its name. The town's cathedral, St Brendan's, dominates the urban sk ...

County Galway County Galway ( ; ) is a Counties of Ireland, county in Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is in the Northern and Western Region, taking up the south of the Provinces of Ireland, province of Connacht. The county population was 276,451 at the 20 ...

, O'Kelly was educated locally and began his career as a journalist with the

Cork "Cork" or "CORK" may refer to: Materials * Cork (material), an impermeable buoyant plant product ** Stopper (plug), or "cork", a cylindrical or conical object used to seal a container *** Wine cork an item to seal or reseal wine Places Ireland * ...

newspaper ''Southern Star''. He moved from '' The Southern Star'' to the '' Leinster Leader'' in Naas where he remained as Editor until he went to work in 1916 for ''Nationality'', the

Sinn Féin Sinn Féin ( ; ; ) is an Irish republican and democratic socialist political party active in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. The History of Sinn Féin, original Sinn Féin organisation was founded in 1905 by Arthur Griffit ...

party newspaper. Michael O'Kelly, his more militant brother, took over at the ''Leader'' in 1912, but was interned after the April 1916

Easter Rising The Easter Rising (), also known as the Easter Rebellion, was an armed insurrection in Ireland during Easter Week in April 1916. The Rising was launched by Irish republicans against British rule in Ireland with the aim of establishing an ind ...

. Seumas returned to the ''Leader'' for a brief stint. There is a plaque in his honour outside the ''Leaders offices which reads "Seumas O'Kelly – a gentle revolutionary". He wrote numerous plays, short stories, and novels. His short story "The Weaver's Grave" is among the most acclaimed of Irish short stories. A radio version of this, adapted and produced by Mícheál Ó hAodha, won the

Prix Italia The Prix Italia is an international television, radio-broadcasting and web award. It was established in 1948 by RAI – Radiotelevisione Italiana (in 1948, RAI had the denomination RAI – Radio Audizioni Italiane) in Capri and is honoured with th ...

for Radio Drama in 1961. O'Kelly was a friend of the Irish nationalist

Arthur Griffith Arthur Joseph Griffith (; 31 March 1871 – 12 August 1922) was an Irish writer, newspaper editor and politician who founded the political party Sinn Féin. He led the Irish delegation at the negotiations that produced the 1921 Anglo-Irish Trea ...

, founder of both the political party

and its newspaper ''Nationality''. He died prematurely of a

heart attack A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when Ischemia, blood flow decreases or stops in one of the coronary arteries of the heart, causing infarction (tissue death) to the heart muscle. The most common symptom ...

following a raid on the paper's headquarters at Harcourt St by British security forces.. Retrieved 2008-03-24.

Prose fiction

These three books are available in digital copies at

HathiTrust HathiTrust Digital Library is a large-scale collaborative repository of digital content from research libraries. Its holdings include content digitized via Google Books and the Internet Archive digitization initiatives, as well as content digit ...

as of November 2018. * ''Waysiders: Stories of Connacht'' (Dublin: The Talbot Press and London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1917) – 10 stories * ''The Lady of Deerpark'' (London: Methuen, 1917) * ''The Golden Barque and The Weaver's Grave'' (Talbot, 1919) – 2 novellas * ''The Leprechaun of Killmeen'' (Dublin: Martin Lester, 1920) – novella * ''Irish Short Stories by Seamus O' Kelly'' (Cork: The Mercier Press, 2024)

References

External links

* * *
Seumas O'Kelly Papers, 1904–1975
at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Special Collections Research Center * (previous page of browse report, as 'O'Kelly, Seumas, 1881–1918') 1881 births 1918 deaths Irish male dramatists and playwrights Irish male short story writers People from County Galway People from Loughrea Irish male novelists 20th-century Irish novelists 20th-century Irish male writers 20th-century Irish dramatists and playwrights 20th-century Irish short story writers 20th-century Irish journalists {{Ireland-writer-stub