Katharine Tynan (1861–1931)

Katharine Tynan was born on a farm in Clondalkin, near Dublin, Ireland, one of 12 children. She attended a Catholic convent school and considered becoming a nun. She published her first poem in 1878, and subsequently contributed poems to Irish Monthly, Hibernia, and the Dublin University Review. She was involved in the Irish literary revival and befriended Gerard Manley Hopkins and W.B. Yeats, with whom she conducted a lifelong correspondence. Her first book, Louise de la Valliere and Other Poems, appeared in 1885. In 1893, she married Henry Albert Hinkson, a barrister and writer and moved with him to London. Thereafter, she used the name Katharine Tynan Hinkson or Tynan-Hinkson. She is said to have written 100 novels, plus 12 collections of short stories, 3 plays, memoirs, devotional works, and many articles on feminist causes and poverty. She's perhaps best known today as the author of the poem "The Wind that Shakes the Barley," which was adapted into a popular song. In 1911, she and her family returned to Ireland, moving to a house called Clarebeg in Shankill, a suburb of Dublin. Her daughter Pamela Hinkson also became a writer, and supported her after the death of her husband left them nearly penniless.