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Proper impressive and no mistake
Continuing her literary travels around these islands, Lorna Hogg’s latest subject needs no introduction: Dubliner George Bernard Shaw, one of the most influential and successful dramatists of the 20th century but forever associated with his creation, the flower girl Eliza, in Pygmalion
Nobel Prize winner, writer, critic, political activist, vegetarian, early Anti-Vaccer - and author of over sixty plays, he was one of the most influential dramatists of the twentieth century; George Bernard Shaw – or Bernard Shaw, as he liked to be known -- was born on 26th July 1856 at 3, Upper Synge Street, Dublin. Irony was a feature of his work - and also his life. Hailed as a great Irish writer, he may have been born into the then Protestant Ascendency, but his was an impoverished branch. His early home life was unconventional and unhappy, and he departed Ireland early for twentyseven years, and never returned to live here. He retained his British citizenship after Irish independence and lived in England for most of his adult life, challenging its values and political beliefs, as much as he did the Irish variety. He would claim that complete Irish independence was ‘impractical’ but met Michael Collins, and was impressed by him - and also received the Freedom of the City of Dublin in 1946. Shaw grew up in a lower middle class family, 20 Senior Times l March - April 2022 l www.seniortimes.ie
the son of George and Lucinda Shaw. His mother was close to the family lodger, musician George Lee, with whom she, Shaw and his sisters Lucinda and Èlinor Agnes, eventually moved to Hatch Street. The young boy disliked it even more. He left school at fifteen, and self-educated, whilst working for a time in a firm of land agents. In 1862 his mother and Lee along with his two sisters, left Ireland for London. Shaw joined them in 1876, from the Dublin home shared with his father, upon hearing that his sister Agnes was dying of tuberculosis. Shaw’s early London years were filled with his attempts to get work, and also his interests in political movements and societies. He lived with his mother, and developed an interest in Fabianism, Marxism and Socialism. By the 1880s, however, his life had changed. He finally found work as a newspaper critic, insisting that ‘all great art needs a message.’ He also had his first serious love affair with an older married woman, Jane Patterson. It lasted for eight years.
