Pat O'Shea (22 January 1931 – 3 May 2007) was an Irish children's fiction writer. She was born in

Galway Galway ( ; , ) is a City status in Ireland, city in (and the county town of) County Galway. It lies on the River Corrib between Lough Corrib and Galway Bay. It is the most populous settlement in the province of Connacht, the List of settleme ...

and was the youngest of five children. Her first novel was the best-selling '' The Hounds of the Morrigan'', which took 13 years to complete. It was finally published in 1985 by

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...

, translated into five languages, and is still considered a classic of children's literature.

Biography

O'Shea was born in the

Bohermore Bohermore () is an area of Galway City, Galway, Ireland. It got this name as it was the main road into Galway City from the east in medieval times. The area is known as the location of the large Bohermore Cemetery, also called the "New Cemeter ...

area of Galway and attended Presentation National School and the Convent of Mercy Secondary School. She was the youngest of five children. Her mother died when O'Shea was a small child, and she and the other children were brought up by her older sister. At 16 she followed her siblings to

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

and decided to stay there, getting a job in a bookshop in

Manchester Manchester () is a city and the metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It had an estimated population of in . Greater Manchester is the third-most populous metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.92&nbs ...

. She began to write theatre plays and received a bursary in 1967 from the British Art Council.Daniel Ficking,
Obituary - Pat O'Shea, Author of the best-selling The Hounds of the Morrigan
" The Guardian, Saturday, 23 June 2007 Her writing for the theatre was supported by David Scase, director of the

Library Theatre Manchester Central Library is the headquarters of the city's library and information service in Manchester, England. Facing St Peter's Square, it was designed by E. Vincent Harris and constructed between 1930 and 1934. The form of the build ...

, Manchester, and his successor Tony Colegate, and four of her one-act plays were produced by the Library Theatre. Her play ''The King's Ears'' was commissioned by

BBC Northern Ireland BBC Northern Ireland is a division of the BBC and the main public broadcasting, public broadcaster in Northern Ireland. It is widely available across both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. BBC Northern Ireland is one of the four BB ...

. In 1971 she worked on a

sketch comedy Sketch comedy comprises a series of short, amusing scenes or vignettes, called "sketches" or, "skits", commonly between one and ten minutes long, performed by a group of comic actors or comedians. While the form developed and became popular in ...

show for

Granada Television ITV Granada, formerly known as Granada Television, is the ITV (TV network), ITV franchisee for the North West of England and Isle of Man. From 1956 to 1968 it broadcast to both the north west and Yorkshire on weekdays only, as ABC Weekend TV, ...

called ''Flat Earth'', but this was not successful. In 1969 she had begun to write short stories and poetry, as well as a comic novel (unpublished). By the early 1970s she began writing ''The Hounds of the Morrigan'' to please herself and family and friends, with little expectation of getting it published. It took O'Shea ten years to complete her novel. By 1985, it had already been translated into several languages. In poor health by the time of that novel's first sudden success, she completed only a few chapters of the unpublished sequel in the subsequent decades, although her obituary in

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

calls these "brilliant". In 1988 O'Shea published a second children's book, ''Finn Mac Cool and the Small Men of Deeds'', through the publisher Holiday. It was a retelling of folklore tales, illustrated by Stephen Lavis. In 1987

Horn Book Magazine ''The Horn Book Magazine'', founded in Boston in 1924, is the oldest bimonthly magazine dedicated to reviewing children's literature. It began as a "suggestive purchase list" prepared by Bertha Mahony and Elinor Whitney Field, proprietors of t ...

included it in their annual list of notable children's books, giving it a Horn Book Fanfare Best books of the year award. In 1999 she published her third (and final) book, ''The Magic Bottle'' ( Scholastic). It was also illustrated by Lavis. She married JJ (Jack) O'Shea in 1953, but they separated in 1962. They had one son, Jim. Pat O'Shea died in

in 2007, at age 76.

Published books

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Oshea, Pat 1931 births 2007 deaths Irish children's writers Irish women writers Irish fantasy writers