The Book, Cat, & Cat Book Lovers Almanac

of historical trivia regarding books, cats, and other animals. Actually this blog has evolved so that it is described better as a blog about cats in history and culture. And we take as a theme the advice of Aldous Huxley: If you want to be a writer, get some cats. Don't forget to see the archived articles linked at the bottom of the page.

September 29, 2012

September 29, 1909

Bryan MacMahon,  the Irish writer, of some fame, lived from September 29, 1909 to February 13, 1998. According to one author's blurb. MacMahon was:

Winner of the 1993 American Ireland Fund Literary Award. MacMahon is one of Ireland's great writers, a teacher who, to use his own inimitable phrase, has left 'the track of his teeth on a parish for three generations'. This account of his life has all the magic, drama, love of language, and love of Ireland that has made him famous as a talker, ballad-maker, playwright, novelist, and short-story writer of international stature.

MacMahon was from Listowel, County Kerry. His books include The Lion Tamer, and Other Stories (1949) and The Red Petticoat and Other Stories (1955). His autobiography he titled, The Master (1994). One of his sons is currently a judge on the Irish High Court.

It is a story included in The Red Petticoat that caught our intention today:

"The Cat and the Cornfield" in the words of the author "tells of a cat who betrayed its master, a parish clerk, who had lured a tinker girl into a cornfield."

"The Cat and the Cornfield" is English for "O Gato e o Milharal"

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