O'Faolain, Julia

(Irish, 1932– )

O'Faolain was born in London, and grew up in Dublin, where she was educated at University College. Begin with the high-spirited Godded and Codded (1970), which satirizes repressive Irish attitudes to sexuality through the adventures of a young woman in Paris. Set in sixth-century Gaul, Women in the Wall (1975) concerns the quest for sainthood of Radegund, wife of the King of Gaul, who founds a convent where religious hysteria breaks out. The oppressive conditioning of women by Church and State in modern Ireland is a central theme in No Country for Young Men (1980), in which a distinguished family conceal a dangerous secret from the early days of Irish independence. Her other books include The Judas Cloth (1992), which traces the Vatican's decline under Pius IX as political power becomes increasingly secularized in nineteenth-century Italy.

Clare Boylan, Edna O'Brien.

See IRELAND  DH