The Lyric Feature on Sunday 22nd March at 6pm on RTÉ lyric fm is The Blind Poetess of Ulster, telling the story of the writer Frances Browne (1816-1879).
The presenter of the programme, playwright, theatre scholar and arts education consultant Dr Shirley-Anne Godfrey, introduces us to her fellow Stranorlar woman:
I grew up on Main Street Stranorlar, Co. Donegal, in the 1980s. Almost every day, as a child, I passed a plaque on a house marking the birthplace of Frances Browne, the Blind Poetess of Ulster. I liked knowing I was walking where she had walked and remember trying to imagine what she might have felt and smelled and heard as she walked to church or into her father's Post Office. Occasionally she was mentioned in St. Mary’ National School, and I remember her book of stories Granny’s Wonderful Chair being read to us, and it rivalled Enid Blyton’s Faraway Tree!
But Frances only became a flesh and blood woman and artist to me much later, as I followed my own creative path, and began to use theatre to tell her story and to bring her work to the world in my play In My Mind’s Eye. My research and playwriting merged under the encouragement of Dr. Charlotte McIvor at the University of Galway, where my PhD allowed me to delve into the reasons for Frances Browne’s erasure from the academy and the public memory, and to experiment with how theatre can reconnect the public with their lost literary foremothers.
I am proud and excited to present the radio programme The Blind Poetess of Ulster on RTÉ lyric fm, an account of Frances Browne’s remarkable life and work, along with local advocates who celebrate her in the community. Hers is a story that has remained untold for too long, and which deserves national celebration. The programme also traces Browne’s re-emergence among scholars, and the growth of the unique Frances Browne Literary Festival, now in its 6th year.
The Blind Poetess of Ulster, presented by Shirley-Anne Godfrey, is the Lyric Feature on Sunday 22nd March at 6pm and will be available after broadcast as a Lyric Feature podcast - listen to more from The Lyric Feature here
