Thy Tears Might Cease

This semi-autobiographical novel, published in 1963, is largely set between 1911 and 1921, the key period of transition from an Ireland planning for Home Rule to a country fighting for full independence. The central character, Martin Matthew Reilly, has connections both with the countryside and with Dublin; provincial Ireland speaking to him of conservative tradition while Dublin calls him to radicalism. In 2007, the author Frank Delaney included Thy Tears Might Cease in his Top 10 Irish novels, along with The Last September by Elizabeth Bowen.

The author, Michael Farrell (born 19 September 1899), grew up in Carlow. He was educated in the prestigious Roman Catholic schools of Knockbeg College and Blackrock College. He then began a medicine degree in University College Dublin. His studies were interrupted by imprisonment for subversive activities and he didn't devote his life to medicine. Instead, he focused on writing. His output was largely journalistic but he started writing his one novel at a relatively young age. His friend and fellow writer Monk Gibbon explains that “it is difficult to say when Farrell first began to write the book. It may have been in the early days of his marriage [he married in 1930] but his brother Seán believes that it might have been considerably earlier”. In 1937, with the support of another writer friend, Seán Ó Faoláin, the book was accepted for publication by a London publisher but Farrell refused to release the book and continued to edit and revise his book for many years after that. It was finally published in 1963, the year after his death.

The outbreak of the First World War is described from a provincial Irish viewpoint:
“No one at Keelard had given much thought to it when the newspapers had headlined the murder of an Austrian archduke — whatever an archduke might be — at some unpronounceable place in the Balkans. Even Miss Clare had only seen in it an opportunity to point out that there were still a few corners of the world left which were not wholly civilised. She did not dream that the mask was going to drop from the face of the whole continent. And when it did drop... the general mood in all countries was one of elation rather than despondency. That mood touched Ireland as well as everywhere else. It too resounded with cries of ‘gallant little Belgium’. It too raised its hands in horror at the crime committed against Catholic Louvain. The flags of the Allies appeared on traps and asses’ carts... the British and the Irish flags hung, crossed in amity, in Irish streets.”