For the last few days we've been batting this one around on
http://www.politics.ie/history/133184-lia-clarke-who-precisely-she.html. I think we're running out of options; and we need other inputs.
The lady is question is a minor figure on the Dublin scene between the Wars. She was a published poet and short story writer (using the pen-name "Margaret Lyster"). She wrote for the
Irish Press, including theatre criticism; and we find her in the company of Madame Gonne MacBride and Yeats. She married (see below) the poet Austin Clarke. By the '30s she was submitting material to the German news-agencies, and (using other pseudonyms) producing some unpleasant anti-semitic stuff.
This is what the
Dictionary of National Biography, under the entry for Austin Clarke, says:
In autumn 1917 Clarke was appointed assistant lecturer in the department of English at University College, Dublin. As civil unrest intensified, his mental health deteriorated and in March 1919 his mother committed him to St Patrick's Hospital, where he was confined for over a year with severe depression and physical breakdown. Before his hospitalization he had met Cornelia Alice Mary Cummins (1889–1943), daughter of Edward Cummins, a bank manager from Drogheda, co. Louth, and his wife, formerly Winifred Blake. A well-educated older woman with a small private income who had lived abroad, Cummins established a career as a journalist who also published short stories and poor-quality verse under the pseudonym Margaret Lyster. She was considered eccentric, even mad; violently antisemitic, she harboured strong Nazi sympathies in later life. She and Clarke married secretly in a register office in Dublin on 31 December 1920, but the union was probably unconsummated and lasted less than a fortnight. About 1928 Clarke instigated unsuccessful divorce proceedings.
My sparring partner in the Politics.ie thread says:
I've done a quick bit of research and neither Edward nor Winifred Cummins appear in either the 1901 or 1911 census in Louth. I've checked all Edward Cummins (39 in 1901 and 47 in 1911) and none of them appear to hold occupations related to banking. Of course he could have died by then. I also checked all Cummins in Louth and Meath and nothing can be found there either.
Searchs on Ancestry.com and GenesReunited.com didn't yield anything.
However - on www.jbhallfreeservers.com (an excellent site for Louth geneaology) - under the index to gravestone inscriptions, a Winifred Cummins (alias Blake) is buried in Cord Cemetery in Drogheda. However there is no mention of Edward Cummins (either in Cord or any other graveyard) - it's possible of course he's buried in a graveyard that hasn't been transcribed, but usually a husband and wife would be buried in the same grave.
There is a definitive birth certificate for Cornelia Alice May (b. 11 March 1889), daughter of Edward Cummins, Bank Manager, Laurence St., Drogheda, and Winifrid Mary Cummins formerly Blake.
I'd have been prepared to accept that as closure. However, there is a wrinkle.
on 24 Nov 2008, Whyte's, the Dublin fine art auctioneers, sold a pencil sketch of Lia Clarke. The main interest of the piece is it was done by
AE around 1920: it sold for €4,800, twice the estimate.
A Comyn connection?Whyte's asserted the provenance as "The sitter's family by descent". The sales blurb was:
Novelist, playwright, art critic and psychic medium, Lia Clarke (1889-1943) was a woman of many parts. Born Cornelia Comyn (or Cummins) the daughter of Nicholas Comyn of Balinderry, Co. Galway, her mother’s family were Blakes from Co. Cork, from whom she inherited a private income derived from her grandfather’s business as a glass maker. She was raised in Waterford by an aunt’s family, the Jennings, but later moved to Dublin, where she became involved in literary and theosophical circles. Possibly it was her experiments in automatic writing that interested Æ, who has captured her here with an inspired yet far away expression. In 1920 she married Austin Clarke, but the marriage lasted barely a fortnight. She later settled in Nassau Street, where she wrote articles for the Irish Press. A later portrait of her, by Gaetano de Gennaro, sold through these rooms (27 May 2006, lot 135) ...
So, your starter for nothing: any other sightings of Ms Cummins/Comyn/Mrs Clarke? All helpful hints and comments gratefully received.
