An evocative account of a teacher’s fall from grace
Yet Seán adored Bella, who was 15 years his senior. He used her as inspiration in his writing; Nora Clitheroe, in Plough and the Stars, and Mary Boyle, in Juno and the Paycock, are believed to have been loosely based on her.
In The Rising of Bella Casey, Mary Morrissy imagines the gaps Seán left in Bella’s biography. And she does more. In fictionalising the account, she invents a reason for Bella’s fall from grace.
