The funerals of two of Ireland's most famous contemporary writers who died within a month of each other this summer reflect the complex relationship that each woman had with the Catholic Church in Ireland, while also speaking to the larger tensions still playing out between Church, State and society at large in the country.
Both London-based novelist Edna O’Brien, who died 27 July aged 93, and the Derry journalist and writer Nell McCafferty, who died 21 August aged 80, found themselves at loggerheads with the Church for different reasons. With O’Brien it was for her novels, especially her ground-breaking debut The Country Girls, which explored the experiences, desires and struggles of two teenage girls who attend a strict Roman Catholic convent school in the Irish countryside. McCafferty wrote as an ardent feminist who was openly lesbian and clashed with the Church on abortion laws and many other issues around gender and sexuality.
