Irish writer Edna O’Brien’s “revolutionary intervention in Irish fiction” has been remembered during her funeral mass, which was attended by Ireland’s President Michael D Higgins.
Family and friends of the late novelist gave readings and paid tribute during the service at St Joseph’s Church in her native Tuamgraney, Co Clare on Saturday.
O’Brien, a novelist, short-story writer, memoirist, poet and playwright, died aged 93 last month after a long illness.
Higgins was joined by his wife Sabina Coyne, who appeared emotional throughout the service.
During the procession of symbols, family members and friends laid items which held significance for O’Brien.
Her grandson Oscar presented the Irish author’s French Legion of Honour to represent a “lifetime of extraordinary achievement”, which included an honorary damehood and a Torc of the Saoi, the highest honour that can be awarded by Aosdana, an Irish association of elite artists.
Other items included a Buddha statue offered by her niece, to symbolise that O’Brien was a “deeply spiritual woman whose curiosity and open heart led her to many faiths throughout her lifetime”, including Buddhism.
Her Irish literary inspirations were honoured by a friend who carried a copy of James Joyce’s Ulysses, while another presented a portrait of the late author Samuel Beckett, a friend of O’Brien.
Her son Marcus Gebler told mourners the purpose of his mother’s writing was to “illuminate, inspire, give courage” to those who struggled to speak out.
“For many writers, it is their first book that is their best, and they never quite live up to that initial curated distillation of their own life.
“But in our mother’s case, her development as a writer was an arc continually ascending from the lives of young women in 1940s Ireland, through age, experience and suffering, to 1990s’ Bosnia or Nigeria in 2014.”
On the purpose of her writing, he added: “I believe in her case, it has been and will remain, to illuminate, inspire, give courage to and speak for those who are rendered dumb.”
He became emotional as he finished by recalling what a doctor told him after his son Oscar was born, saying: “The most important thing you can do is to give him love as much as possible and all the time, and that is what we got from her.”
O’Brien’s friend, Scottish novelist Andrew O’Hagan, paid tribute to her legacy, saying she changed the perception of Irish female writers.
“But we must remember, as we celebrate her now, the hard road she had to navigate, even amongst her heroes.
“‘Men are governed by lines of intellect’, James Joyce wrote, ‘Women by curves of emotion’.
“But Edna made it her task on an international stage both to embody and to defy that thought, marrying the intellectual to the sensual, coupling the emotional and the thoughtful, raising the bar on common experience and on inheritance, our pride of worth.”
O’Hagan spoke about “how funny” she was, saying: “Her comic engine was always turning, even, or especially, in the midst of of anxiety – the comic engine, along with those other great turbines of creativity, outrage, ambition.
“But at the centre of it all was a talent so singular that nothing could countermand it, nor age, nor illness, or lack of stamina.
“Yet they were rooted in the history and the byways of Ireland, which was forever the landscape of her imagination, the seedbed of her writing and her soul.”
President and Sabina Higgins are this morning attending the funeral of Edna O’Brien in Tuamgraney, Co Clare. You can read the President’s statement following Edna’s death at https://t.co/UUfpbBK75N pic.twitter.com/24UDNRUjea
— President of Ireland (@PresidentIRL) August 10, 2024
Among the songs performed during the service was the hymn The Lord’s my Shepherd, the traditional Irish song Danny Boy and a rendition of An Irish Blessing to close the service.
O’Brien’s remains were taken to St Joseph’s Church on Friday for the reposal and she will be buried on Holy Island after the funeral service.
The writer was best known for her portrayal of women’s lives against repressive expectations of Irish society.
Her first novel, The Country Girls, was published in 1960 and became part of a trilogy that was banned in Ireland for their references to sex and social issues.
O’Brien, who had lived in London since 1958, described an outraged response from people in Ireland in contrast to the book’s international success.
