E. Owens Blackburne

Elizabeth Owens Blackburne Casey was an Irish writer and novelist who published the first biographical reference book of Irish women. She used the pen name of E. Owens Blackburne.

Early life and education

Born Elizabeth Owens Blackburne Casey on 10 May 1848 in Slane, County Meath, to Andrew Casey and Miss Mills. She went blind when she was 11 but had her sight restored by Sir William Wilde. Casey was educated in Trinity College Dublin. She became a writer and contributed to the Irish Nationalist paper, The Nation. She moved to London when she was about 25 to work as a journalist. It was there she published several novels which were quite popular. However one of her novels Erin: A Story of Today was published at about the same time as the Phoenix Park Murders which damaged her reputation and resulted in a loss of sales for her. As a result, she required support from the Royal Literary Fund to survive. She lived poorly and died in a fire in Drumcondra, Dublin in 1894.

Timing

The timing of a story calling for greater understanding between Ireland and England in a time when the political situation between the two countries was tense and two senior officials had just been murdered by radical rebels meant that Casey was treated very badly by the press. In the London Athenaeum review on 20 May 1882 the press called Blackburne "a thoroughgoing partisan of the Land League". As a result, her books would no longer be published.