Alice Furlong

{{Short description|Irish writer, poet and political activist}} {{Use dmy dates|date=January 2021}} {{Infobox writer | name = Alice Furlong | birth_date = {{birth date|1866|11|26|df=y}} | birth_place = Old Bawn, County Dublin | death_date = 1946 | death_place = | resting_place = | occupation = Writer, poet, Political activist | language = Irish, English | nationality = Irish | education = Dr Steevens' Hospital | alma_mater = | period = | genre =  | subject =  | movement = Inghinidhe na hÉireann }}

'''Alice Furlong''' (26 November 1866 – 1946) was an Irish writer, poet and political activist who also worked on Irish publications with Douglas Hyde (later President of Ireland).

==Life== She was born at Old Bawn, near Tallaght, County Dublin, the daughter of John Furlong, a sporting journalist. She trained as a nurse at Dr Steevens' Hospital. In the 1890s, her father was injured in a race-course accident and ended up in her ward, where he died shortly afterward, and her mother died two months later.<ref>{{cite journal | first = Matthew | last = Russell | title = Poets I have Known: VIII: Alice Furlong | journal = The Irish Monthly | volume = 36 | issue = 421 | date = July 1908 | pages = 389-398 | jstor = 20501372}}</ref> Her first literary contributions were to the ''Irish Monthly'' at age 16.<ref name=grace>{{cite web|url = http://www.ricorso.net/rx/az-data/authors/f/Furlong_A/life.htm | first = Bruce | last = Stewart | publisher = Ricorso | work = Index of Irish Authors | title = Alice Furlong - Life | accessdate = 17 September 2020 }}</ref>

In 1899, Furlong published ''Roses and Rue'', favourably reviewed by Stopford Brooke and others, and in 1907 ''Tales of Fairy Folk'' and ''Queens and Heroes''. Her verse appeared in several anthologies.<ref name=grace/> She contributed to several journals, including the ''Irish Monthly'', the ''Weekly Freeman'', ''Chambers's Journal,'' and the nationalist ''Shan Van Vocht'', run by Alice Milligan, and Anna Johnston (Ethna Carbery).<ref>{{cite book | first = Karen Margaret | last = Steele | title = Women, press, and politics during the Irish revival | publisher = Syracuse University Press | date = 2007| page = 30 | isbn = 9780815631415 }}</ref> After 1916 she started studying Irish, and in the 1920s published poems in Irish and translated from Irish, and added the Irish Press to the journals she contributed to.<ref name=Little>{{cite journal|last=Little|first=Arthur|date=April 1947|title=Lest We Forget Alice Furlong|journal=The Irish Monthly|publisher=Irish Province of the Society of Jesus|volume=75|issue=886|jstor=20515632|ref=Little}}</ref>

In 1900 she was a founder-member of Inghinidhe na hÉireann, the revolutionary women's organisation led by Maud Gonne. Furlong was elected a vice-president of the association, along with Jenny Wyse Power, Annie Egan and Anna Johnston.<ref>{{cite book | first = Elizabeth | last = Coxhead |author-link=Elizabeth Coxhead| publisher = Secker & Warburg | date = 1965 | title = Coxhead: Daughters of Erin, Five Women of the Irish Renaissance | page = 44 | oclc = 221610878 }}</ref>

Two of her sisters, Katherine and Mary, also wrote poetry, but died young, while another sister, Margaret, married the songwriter P. J. McCall.{{fact|date=September 2020}}

==References== {{reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Furlong, Alice}} Category:1866 births Category:1946 deaths Category:19th-century Irish poets Category:20th-century Irish poets Category:20th-century Irish women poets Category:Writers from County Dublin Category:20th-century Irish writers Category:Victorian women writers Category:Victorian writers Category:Irish nurses Category:People from Tallaght Category:Health professionals from County Dublin Category:19th-century Irish women poets