O'Connor, Frank

O'Connor, Frank, 1903–66, Irish short-story writer, whose name originally was Michael O'Donovan. He was a librarian in Dublin and later a director of the Abbey Theatre (1936–39). O'Connor is noted primarily for his short stories—witty, tender, and penetrating studies of Irish life. He also published poetry, critical works, and volumes of Irish history.

Bibliography

See his autobiography, An Only Child (1961); biography by J. McKeon (1999).

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O'Connor, Frank

 orig. Michael O'Donovan

(born 1903, Cork, County Cork, Ire.—died March 10, 1966, Dublin) Irish writer. Brought up in poverty, O'Connor became a librarian and a director of Dublin's Abbey Theatre. He won popularity in the U.S. for short stories in which apparently trivial incidents illuminate Irish life. They appeared in volumes including Guests of the Nation (1931) and Crab Apple Jelly (1944) and in The New Yorker magazine. He also wrote critical studies on Irish life and literature and translations of Gaelic works of the 9th–20th centuries, including the great 17th-century satire The Midnight Court (1945).