This article is from page 4 of the 2014-07-15 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 4 JPG
THE FORMER home of controversial Clare novelist Edna O’Brien could be purchased and maintained by the Irish state.
Calls have been made for the State to intervene and purchase Drewsborough House in Tuamgraney after the property failed to sell at auction earlier this month.
The property, which was a central setting for O’Brien’s debut book, the partially autobiographical ‘The County Girls’, failed to reach its guide price of € 350,000 at auction.
Indeed the property, which was val- ued in excess of € 1 million during the Celtic Tiger years, was taken off the market with bidding reaching just € 200,000.
The house and adjoining land is being sold by the estate of the late Claire O’Brien, the novelist’s sister-in-law, who lived at Drewsborough with the novelist’s late brother, who ran his medical practice from the house.
According to auctioneer Noel Corcoran negotiations for the sale of the property are ongoing with one of bidders involved in the auction.
The property was described by O’Brien as “a font of inspiration” during an unveiling of a plaque in her honour at Drewsborough House in 2011.
O’Brien’s childhood there was not a happy one, as detailed in her 2012 memoir, Country Girl.
She was born in 1930 and her first novel, The Country Girls, is credited as breaking the silence on sexual matters and social issues in Ireland. The book was banned, burned and denounced from the pulpit following it publication, leading to O’Brien leaving Ireland and settling in London where she now lives.
Calls have been made for the state to acquire the house and develop it into a writers retreat and museum but to date there has been no formal government statement on the proposal.