Clodagh Finn: A Nollaig na mBan tribute to the Long-Winded Lady

Maeve Brennan was much better known in New York than she was at home — having made a name for herself as a copy editor at ‘Harper’s Bazaar’ magazine and later as a staff writer at ‘The New Yorker’.

Maeve Brennan, about 1948, photographed by Karl Bissinger in the New York apartment of the theatre critic Thomas Quinn Curtiss. 

Today is writer Maeve Brennan’s birthday. She would have been 107. Today is also Nollaig na mBan, and it feels like a particularly special Women’s Christmas gift that this woman, so long forgotten, will be celebrated at her childhood home with the unveiling of a commemorative plaque.

Another writer Sinéad Gleeson, a long-time champion of Brennan and indeed so many other female writers, will join Dublin Lord Mayor Daithí de Róiste this morning to pay tribute to one of the finest writers of the 20th century.