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Daughters of Passion
Faber Stories, a landmark series of individual volumes, presents masters of the short story form at work in a range of genres and styles. Her story was she had been an orphan, her mother probably a whore. Brought up by nuns, she had lost her faith, found another, fought for it and been imprisoned. This was inexact but serviceable.On the twelfth day of her hunger strike, Maggy is unable to tell the difference between what is real and what is imagined. That's true of what brought her here was she IRA, or did she just take risks for the sake of a friend?Julia O'Faolain paints a portrait of young Irish girls and their unseverable connection, showing solidarity in places politics cannot reach.
45 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1982
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May 14, 2024
‘The best myths had a dose of truth to them.’
You know how certain animals are able to puff themselves out to appear much larger and intense than they actually are? Today I learned it’s called deimatic behavior (forever shoutout to late-night Wikipedia rabbit holes) and Julia O'Faolain is able to create the same effect in Daughters of Passion, diving into a story to unpack cause and effect through the history of her characters, the nuance of their relationships and the political implications of their actions all through a minimal page count that manages to feel like the scope of a full-fledged novel. Set during The Troubles in Ireland, Daughters of Passion centers on Maggy as she struggles to withstand a hunger strike in prison giving us the insights that the English newspapers are wondering under headlines like ‘the twisted logic of the terrorist mind.’ O’Faolain’s exceptional and rather fluid prose weaves past and present as Maggy slips into delusional states as the story circuitously inches towards the how’s and why’s of her crime that—since we know Maggy is the killer—isn’t quite a whodunnit but more like a “who-got-dun.” Crisp and charged with tension, Daughters of Passion is a knock-out of a short story that captures ‘freedom so fragile’ as traumas befell even the bystanders during the Troubles in a story that shows how in fraught times any event can be cast as a political statement.
‘She had committed a murder. Performed an execution. Saved a man’s life.
Depending on how you looked at it.’
I can’t resist a story about the Troubles and when I saw Eleanor’s perfectly succinct review of this I scrambled to read it myself. Julia O’Faolin, who sadly passed in 2020, was known for works that explored the issues faced by women in contradictory social struggles. Here we see the lifelong friendship between three girls who meet in a convent school and how their desires to support each other become interwoven with a larger socio-political context where ‘police were undoubtedly the culprits. Police ‘bent the rules’ in ways that force people between a rock and a hard place.
Become an informer, or be falsely labeled an informant and disposed of. Such issues have been explored in other great Irish novels such as Anna Burns’s Booker winning novel Milkman where any interaction can become politically charged. We have Maggy who now sits in prison on a hunger strike to be deemed a political prisoner despite there being no political prisoner status, Rosheen—‘unmodulated and unskinned: an emotional bomb liable to go off unpredictably’—and Dizzy, the well-off protestant who converts to Catholicism and is always ‘speaking on behalf of the agitators, the leaven, the heroes.’ As they girls become close the stakes get greater and Maggy decides to take action.
‘Half the trouble in the world…comes…from people asking too much of themselves…and of each other.’
The story does well by placing the reader in what feels like an everyday person’s role to see how quickly one can become enmeshed in dramatic or violent situations. Such was the case in Troubles, and the story draws on real-life uses of IRA hunger strikes, such as the hunger strike by Dolours Price, which is featured in the non-fiction work Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe which I always highly recommend. What really brings this story to life, however, is the prose. Using a free indirect discourse that fluctuates past and present, it blurs cause and effect as well as Maggy’s perception on reality in a way that feels indicative of the confusion and blurred boundaries faced by people at this time of great division. There is particularly effective symbolism around the man with the glass eye who visits Maggy in jail and had ‘a confusion about him as though he didn’t know whom to distrust most’ and his ‘dead eye kept vigil…it occurred to her that one half of his face mistrusted the other.’ How can there be any unity with so much distrust, and how can one know who to trust?
‘You’re political or what are you?’
An aspect that really hits hard is the realization between public perception and the truth we find in Maggy’s memories and how one is far more politically advantageous. ‘Brought up by nuns, she had lost her faith, found another, fought for it and been imprisoned,’ is a good story, especially because its true yet still it is misleading. To understand why you’ll just have to read the story! But O'Faolain does well to craft a situation that shows how slogans become ideological marketing that steamroll nuance for the sake of empowerment and the case of Maggy and her use to the IRA becomes a sort of political deimatic behavior.
‘Political? The notion exhilarated. Old songs. Solidarity. We shall overcome. In gaol, as in church, that sort of language seemed to work.’
A quick story, but one that moves around so well and to such great extents even in its small page count that it feels much larger than it actually is. Which is also how Daughters of Passion is able to land such a powerful blow.
4.5/5
‘Another martyr for auld Oireland
Another murther for the Crown…’
You know how certain animals are able to puff themselves out to appear much larger and intense than they actually are? Today I learned it’s called deimatic behavior (forever shoutout to late-night Wikipedia rabbit holes) and Julia O'Faolain is able to create the same effect in Daughters of Passion, diving into a story to unpack cause and effect through the history of her characters, the nuance of their relationships and the political implications of their actions all through a minimal page count that manages to feel like the scope of a full-fledged novel. Set during The Troubles in Ireland, Daughters of Passion centers on Maggy as she struggles to withstand a hunger strike in prison giving us the insights that the English newspapers are wondering under headlines like ‘the twisted logic of the terrorist mind.’ O’Faolain’s exceptional and rather fluid prose weaves past and present as Maggy slips into delusional states as the story circuitously inches towards the how’s and why’s of her crime that—since we know Maggy is the killer—isn’t quite a whodunnit but more like a “who-got-dun.” Crisp and charged with tension, Daughters of Passion is a knock-out of a short story that captures ‘freedom so fragile’ as traumas befell even the bystanders during the Troubles in a story that shows how in fraught times any event can be cast as a political statement.
‘She had committed a murder. Performed an execution. Saved a man’s life.
Depending on how you looked at it.’
I can’t resist a story about the Troubles and when I saw Eleanor’s perfectly succinct review of this I scrambled to read it myself. Julia O’Faolin, who sadly passed in 2020, was known for works that explored the issues faced by women in contradictory social struggles. Here we see the lifelong friendship between three girls who meet in a convent school and how their desires to support each other become interwoven with a larger socio-political context where ‘police were undoubtedly the culprits. Police ‘bent the rules’ in ways that force people between a rock and a hard place.
‘told nerve-shot Sean that he’d put the word about in Irish pubs that Sean was an informer unless he became one. An old police trick! It landed men in a ditch with a bullet in the neck before now.’
Become an informer, or be falsely labeled an informant and disposed of. Such issues have been explored in other great Irish novels such as Anna Burns’s Booker winning novel Milkman where any interaction can become politically charged. We have Maggy who now sits in prison on a hunger strike to be deemed a political prisoner despite there being no political prisoner status, Rosheen—‘unmodulated and unskinned: an emotional bomb liable to go off unpredictably’—and Dizzy, the well-off protestant who converts to Catholicism and is always ‘speaking on behalf of the agitators, the leaven, the heroes.’ As they girls become close the stakes get greater and Maggy decides to take action.
‘Half the trouble in the world…comes…from people asking too much of themselves…and of each other.’
The story does well by placing the reader in what feels like an everyday person’s role to see how quickly one can become enmeshed in dramatic or violent situations. Such was the case in Troubles, and the story draws on real-life uses of IRA hunger strikes, such as the hunger strike by Dolours Price, which is featured in the non-fiction work Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe which I always highly recommend. What really brings this story to life, however, is the prose. Using a free indirect discourse that fluctuates past and present, it blurs cause and effect as well as Maggy’s perception on reality in a way that feels indicative of the confusion and blurred boundaries faced by people at this time of great division. There is particularly effective symbolism around the man with the glass eye who visits Maggy in jail and had ‘a confusion about him as though he didn’t know whom to distrust most’ and his ‘dead eye kept vigil…it occurred to her that one half of his face mistrusted the other.’ How can there be any unity with so much distrust, and how can one know who to trust?
‘You’re political or what are you?’
An aspect that really hits hard is the realization between public perception and the truth we find in Maggy’s memories and how one is far more politically advantageous. ‘Brought up by nuns, she had lost her faith, found another, fought for it and been imprisoned,’ is a good story, especially because its true yet still it is misleading. To understand why you’ll just have to read the story! But O'Faolain does well to craft a situation that shows how slogans become ideological marketing that steamroll nuance for the sake of empowerment and the case of Maggy and her use to the IRA becomes a sort of political deimatic behavior.
‘Political? The notion exhilarated. Old songs. Solidarity. We shall overcome. In gaol, as in church, that sort of language seemed to work.’
A quick story, but one that moves around so well and to such great extents even in its small page count that it feels much larger than it actually is. Which is also how Daughters of Passion is able to land such a powerful blow.
4.5/5
‘Another martyr for auld Oireland
Another murther for the Crown…’
January 28, 2019
I really wanted to love this but I think I just ultimately wanted more from it. The premise is genius: an Irish woman in prison half-delusional from a hunger strike looks back on a friendship that led to her involvement with the IRA. It's just very bare-bones and doesn't dig as deep as it needs to into the relationship between Maggy and Dizzy, the relationship that propels the main conflict in this story but which reads like a quick sketch that hasn't been colored in yet. That said, I did enjoy Julia O'Faolain's writing and would happily read more from her... but I'd be lying if I said I weren't a little disappointed, as this was the short story from Faber's 90th anniversary collection that was I was the most looking forward to.
April 22, 2020
#theirishreadathon
Nesta história agora reeditada pela Faber & Faber, Maggy encontra-se em greve de fome numa prisão britânica por um atentando bombista com ligações ao IRA, na tentativa se lhe ser reconhecido o estatuto de presa política. Enquanto se debate com a fraqueza de 12 dias de jejum e a tentação de comer, recorda a sua infância num colégio de freiras, onde conheceu as suas amigas Dizzy e Rasheen, que viria a reencontrar em adulta. Gostei muito do olhar penetrante de Julia O’Faolain sobre os seus conterrâneos e o que leva alguém a actos extremos.
“Her own mind was bent on sabotaging her will. ‘Eat’, her organism signaled slyly to itself in divers ways. (...) Sum ergo think. But thinking used up energy. Better just to dream: let images flicker the way they used to do years and years ago on the school cinema-screen.”
"Dizzy was of Anglo-Irish Protestant stock and had gone native in a programmed way. Her vocabulary was revolutionary. Her upper-class voice had learned modulation at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art."
Nesta história agora reeditada pela Faber & Faber, Maggy encontra-se em greve de fome numa prisão britânica por um atentando bombista com ligações ao IRA, na tentativa se lhe ser reconhecido o estatuto de presa política. Enquanto se debate com a fraqueza de 12 dias de jejum e a tentação de comer, recorda a sua infância num colégio de freiras, onde conheceu as suas amigas Dizzy e Rasheen, que viria a reencontrar em adulta. Gostei muito do olhar penetrante de Julia O’Faolain sobre os seus conterrâneos e o que leva alguém a actos extremos.
“Her own mind was bent on sabotaging her will. ‘Eat’, her organism signaled slyly to itself in divers ways. (...) Sum ergo think. But thinking used up energy. Better just to dream: let images flicker the way they used to do years and years ago on the school cinema-screen.”
"Dizzy was of Anglo-Irish Protestant stock and had gone native in a programmed way. Her vocabulary was revolutionary. Her upper-class voice had learned modulation at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art."
January 31, 2021
I became aware of these little books via a GR friend. Faber, in 2019, on its 90th birthday released 30 short stories in 3 sets of 10 each from its treasure chest of authors. This short story was originally in a short story collection ‘Under the Rose’ published in 2016.
It tells the story of a young woman on a hunger strike in Northern Ireland. The little book with French flaps has this on the inner part of the flap which gives a good intro to the work:
• “Her story was this: she had been an orphan, her mother probably a whore. Brought up by nuns, she had lost her faith, found another, fought for it and been imprisoned. This was inexact but serviceable.”
• On the 12th day of her hunger strike, Maggy is unable to tell the difference between what is real and what is imagined. That’s true of what brought her here too: was she IRA, or did she just take risks for the sake of a friend? Julia O’Faolain paints a portrait of young Irish girls and their unseverable connection, showing solidarity in places politics cannot reach.
Julia O’Faolain died only several months ago at the age of 88. Her obituary can be found here: https://www.theguardian.com/books/202...
Damn good writing.
Here is what French flaps are, in case you did not know...
• The French flaps style is also called a gatefold. They are the extension of the front cover and / or the back cover of a soft cover book. A biography and a summary of the book can be added, as one would find on a dust jacket.
I really like them -- I think they are elegant and turn a paperback into something more than that…in between a paperback and hardcover but as elegant as a hardcover in style, methinks.
It tells the story of a young woman on a hunger strike in Northern Ireland. The little book with French flaps has this on the inner part of the flap which gives a good intro to the work:
• “Her story was this: she had been an orphan, her mother probably a whore. Brought up by nuns, she had lost her faith, found another, fought for it and been imprisoned. This was inexact but serviceable.”
• On the 12th day of her hunger strike, Maggy is unable to tell the difference between what is real and what is imagined. That’s true of what brought her here too: was she IRA, or did she just take risks for the sake of a friend? Julia O’Faolain paints a portrait of young Irish girls and their unseverable connection, showing solidarity in places politics cannot reach.
Julia O’Faolain died only several months ago at the age of 88. Her obituary can be found here: https://www.theguardian.com/books/202...
Damn good writing.
Here is what French flaps are, in case you did not know...
• The French flaps style is also called a gatefold. They are the extension of the front cover and / or the back cover of a soft cover book. A biography and a summary of the book can be added, as one would find on a dust jacket.
I really like them -- I think they are elegant and turn a paperback into something more than that…in between a paperback and hardcover but as elegant as a hardcover in style, methinks.
March 2, 2025
3.75*
An interesting story which takes us down the path of a young woman who is imprisoned and chooses to go on hunger strike during the troubles in Ireland. I found this to be short but effective. I enjoyed the little we learned regarding the characters and how the situation came to be. Yes there could have been more but for a very short read this was written well and sometimes this is a lot harder to do. The scenes flowed well and the commentary between each character made for a decent read.
An interesting story which takes us down the path of a young woman who is imprisoned and chooses to go on hunger strike during the troubles in Ireland. I found this to be short but effective. I enjoyed the little we learned regarding the characters and how the situation came to be. Yes there could have been more but for a very short read this was written well and sometimes this is a lot harder to do. The scenes flowed well and the commentary between each character made for a decent read.
July 22, 2019
I should preface this review by saying Daughters of Passion was one of my most anticipated reads from the Faber Stories range. It’s very possible my high expectations contributed to my lukewarm response. The premise is fantastic: A young Irish woman languishes in prison, delirious from a self-imposed hunger strike. As reality begins to blur, she reflects on a friendship that led to her involvement with the IRA, and the criminal act that put her behind bars.
Perhaps because I love this setup so much, I wish it had been a full-length novel, rather than a short story. Whatever the case, I felt it lacked an emotional core. Interesting themes and brief flashes of brilliance in the prose are given no time to take root; the friendship so pivotal to the narrative feeling too lightly drawn to provide satisfying development or lasting impact.
Perhaps because I love this setup so much, I wish it had been a full-length novel, rather than a short story. Whatever the case, I felt it lacked an emotional core. Interesting themes and brief flashes of brilliance in the prose are given no time to take root; the friendship so pivotal to the narrative feeling too lightly drawn to provide satisfying development or lasting impact.
June 16, 2020
I picked a lot of tiny books last year and Daughters of Passion was one of them. I hadn't heard of the author before and just glanced at the blurb before buying it with the rest of my haul. Finally, I read it today to accompany my tea routine. It was the perfect quick read.
What I really enjoyed is O'Faolain's writing style. There is something distinct about it and there are some phrases which are cleverly worded. As this story has themes of political disillusionment, I wish I knew more about the history of Northern Ireland. The story talks of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) - the name of the group I had heard in passing while auditing an introductory course on terrorism- and how the girls in the story, particularly Maggie, get entangled in their activities.
With my limited knowledge of the subject, I couldn't understand the gravity of the situation. Keeping that aside, I do wish there was more depth to the story. I would have liked to explore the relationship between the three girls, but the layers were lacking.
Overall, it's an average story with some good writing that kept me going. O'Faolain can convey some major themes very well. I'll leave a line below as a conclusion that reflects how 'frontline protestors' may just drown in their own disillusionment and end up becoming cannon fodder for those at the top.
"Political? The notion exhilarated. Old songs. Solidarity. We shall overcome... The strike gave purpose to her days and, like the falling sparrow's, her pain became a usable statistic."
What I really enjoyed is O'Faolain's writing style. There is something distinct about it and there are some phrases which are cleverly worded. As this story has themes of political disillusionment, I wish I knew more about the history of Northern Ireland. The story talks of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) - the name of the group I had heard in passing while auditing an introductory course on terrorism- and how the girls in the story, particularly Maggie, get entangled in their activities.
With my limited knowledge of the subject, I couldn't understand the gravity of the situation. Keeping that aside, I do wish there was more depth to the story. I would have liked to explore the relationship between the three girls, but the layers were lacking.
Overall, it's an average story with some good writing that kept me going. O'Faolain can convey some major themes very well. I'll leave a line below as a conclusion that reflects how 'frontline protestors' may just drown in their own disillusionment and end up becoming cannon fodder for those at the top.
"Political? The notion exhilarated. Old songs. Solidarity. We shall overcome... The strike gave purpose to her days and, like the falling sparrow's, her pain became a usable statistic."
March 19, 2019
This book checks all the boxes for me- interesting and difficult women, orphans, politics, rebellion, loyalty. Best of all, it’s packaged in a tight short story which weaves through time and offers such insightful commentary on women’s relationships to themselves, each other and the world. This is a return read, for me, for sure.
September 14, 2019
So this is the last of my twenty short stories in the Faber Stories series. At least for the moment, because there are another ten stories being published in a couple of months. I have loved the variety and variation across the twenty. Some have been so good that you almost don’t notice how very skillfully they have been written.
'Daughters of Passion' was not one of my favourites, but it did contain some flashes of brilliance. Putting my finger on exactly what it was that didn’t quite work for me will be hard, but the first reaction would be that it lacks layers of character and complexity that I enjoy peeling back. I was not left thinking hard about the story afterwards. I will live on in a good story for days or weeks, still seeing the locations in my imagination or wondering about the motivations of the characters. I don’t think Maggy, Dizzy or Rosheen will be those characters.
Maggy is in prison and on hunger strike. She is a terrorist. Later we discover that she planted a bomb. She was doing it for the IRA (The Irish Republican Army). That could account for my lukewarm reaction. Although I lived through some of that piece of history, watched some of it unfolding on the TV, heard the bomb blasts in West London in Hammersmith and Ealing, was kept out of my office by the bombing in Bishopsgate, I have never felt that I understood why. The causes and motivations were so muddled at the time by groups that seemed to stand for conflicting aims which were not a simple as a unified Ireland. A confusing mix of religion, politics and history that no-one seemed able to move on from. Perhaps now, with the benefit of some distance, it would be possible to properly understand.
I felt a tingle of recognition in this story when there is a meeting in a pub in Camden Town where IRA supporters gather. I remember just such a pub, and drinking there one night when a man came around the bar collecting money. What are you collecting for, I remember naïvely asking. “We’re collecting” was all he replied, in a thick Irish accent. A friend nudged me in the ribs and whispered to put something in the jar. After we left he told me the were collecting for the IRA.
The descriptions of Maggy and her hunger strike are vivid. The mind begins to play tricks and thinking is muddled. “Images decomposed and went edible, like those trick paintings in which whole landscapes turn out to be made up of fruit or sausages. She could smell sausages. Fat beaded on them. Charred skins burst and the stuffing pushed through split bangers in a London pub. Three sausages and three half lagers, please. Harp or Heineken. Yes, draught. Could we have the sausages nice and crispy. Make that six. A dab of mustard.” And so it goes on, memory flicking back to communion wafers and their chocking dryness in the throat. Muddled, confused and hallucinatory. Perfectly captured.
Maggy had lived with a man in San Francisco for a while. He had criticized her for spending too much time in books and been challenged by her coldness. “It was her coldness that had challenged him. He was a man who relished difficulty. Beneath her cold crust he’d counted on finding lava and instead what he’d found inside was colder still: like eating baked Alaska.” Brilliantly put. And that is why I am challenged by this story – those flashes of brilliance are not quite matched by the story taken as a whole.
'Daughters of Passion' was not one of my favourites, but it did contain some flashes of brilliance. Putting my finger on exactly what it was that didn’t quite work for me will be hard, but the first reaction would be that it lacks layers of character and complexity that I enjoy peeling back. I was not left thinking hard about the story afterwards. I will live on in a good story for days or weeks, still seeing the locations in my imagination or wondering about the motivations of the characters. I don’t think Maggy, Dizzy or Rosheen will be those characters.
Maggy is in prison and on hunger strike. She is a terrorist. Later we discover that she planted a bomb. She was doing it for the IRA (The Irish Republican Army). That could account for my lukewarm reaction. Although I lived through some of that piece of history, watched some of it unfolding on the TV, heard the bomb blasts in West London in Hammersmith and Ealing, was kept out of my office by the bombing in Bishopsgate, I have never felt that I understood why. The causes and motivations were so muddled at the time by groups that seemed to stand for conflicting aims which were not a simple as a unified Ireland. A confusing mix of religion, politics and history that no-one seemed able to move on from. Perhaps now, with the benefit of some distance, it would be possible to properly understand.
I felt a tingle of recognition in this story when there is a meeting in a pub in Camden Town where IRA supporters gather. I remember just such a pub, and drinking there one night when a man came around the bar collecting money. What are you collecting for, I remember naïvely asking. “We’re collecting” was all he replied, in a thick Irish accent. A friend nudged me in the ribs and whispered to put something in the jar. After we left he told me the were collecting for the IRA.
The descriptions of Maggy and her hunger strike are vivid. The mind begins to play tricks and thinking is muddled. “Images decomposed and went edible, like those trick paintings in which whole landscapes turn out to be made up of fruit or sausages. She could smell sausages. Fat beaded on them. Charred skins burst and the stuffing pushed through split bangers in a London pub. Three sausages and three half lagers, please. Harp or Heineken. Yes, draught. Could we have the sausages nice and crispy. Make that six. A dab of mustard.” And so it goes on, memory flicking back to communion wafers and their chocking dryness in the throat. Muddled, confused and hallucinatory. Perfectly captured.
Maggy had lived with a man in San Francisco for a while. He had criticized her for spending too much time in books and been challenged by her coldness. “It was her coldness that had challenged him. He was a man who relished difficulty. Beneath her cold crust he’d counted on finding lava and instead what he’d found inside was colder still: like eating baked Alaska.” Brilliantly put. And that is why I am challenged by this story – those flashes of brilliance are not quite matched by the story taken as a whole.
August 23, 2023
Loved the writing, especially when it was her present day thoughts. The prose was really good, and captured the sense of hunger really well.
I thought the background stuff was good too, and as fleshed out as it could be for a short story.
All in all very good!
I thought the background stuff was good too, and as fleshed out as it could be for a short story.
All in all very good!
December 25, 2018
Opening lines: ‘There was a story about her in the Mail.’
March 30, 2020
it was alright? i enjoyed the read, but i feel like i have a very high standard for such short stories to make an impact on me. the topic was definitely something out of my usual reading so that was good!
April 8, 2019
Short story of female friendship and Irish politics. Blending memory with present declining state of a woman on hunger strike. A short I wish were longer
July 25, 2019
Powerful short story, that left me wanting more.
November 11, 2023
A weird story weirdly told. Didn't do much to me.
August 7, 2019
This 49-page short story traces friendships and Irish politics through the eyes of a delusional young woman who goes on a hunger strike while she is imprisoned after getting in trouble with the IRA.
Keeping up with this short was a tad difficult as I kept revisiting the previous paragraphs to freshen up my mind about what had just happened. It felt like this short story began from the middle and ended in the middle of the plot, too. But, much to my surprise, it left me wanting more because I wanted to get to the root of what had happened.
Whilst the plot felt scant and left me confused, the writing was sublime. I absolutely enjoyed her writing and would love to read more of her work.
Keeping up with this short was a tad difficult as I kept revisiting the previous paragraphs to freshen up my mind about what had just happened. It felt like this short story began from the middle and ended in the middle of the plot, too. But, much to my surprise, it left me wanting more because I wanted to get to the root of what had happened.
Whilst the plot felt scant and left me confused, the writing was sublime. I absolutely enjoyed her writing and would love to read more of her work.
May 10, 2019
For Faber's 90th birthday, they have published 20 short stories in lovely little standalone volumes. This is the first I've read: a 49-page short story in which an increasingly delusional IRA hunger-striker reflects on a childhood friendship which ultimately led to her involvement in the IRA. I enjoyed this: I liked the clever use of slightly confused language to reflect mental state. I liked the subtle lines drawn between organic delusion or misunderstanding and the state of being a terrorist. But I didn't feel particularly deeply involved in the story.
October 1, 2021
Actually 2.5.
I was really looking forward to reading this since the premise sounded so interesting, but it was not that compelling in the end. I think I missed some more clarity and some more profound insights from the protagonist because the relationships she looks back to were not very explored in my opinion. I know it’s impossible to really create deep characters in such a short story but I think that was what failed for me.
I was really looking forward to reading this since the premise sounded so interesting, but it was not that compelling in the end. I think I missed some more clarity and some more profound insights from the protagonist because the relationships she looks back to were not very explored in my opinion. I know it’s impossible to really create deep characters in such a short story but I think that was what failed for me.
June 6, 2019
‘And she began blessing herself with gestures designed for distant visibility. Like a swimmer signalling a lifeguard, she was trying for St Anthony’s attention. He was known to be a popular and busy saint.’
May 19, 2019
A sketchy, slightly confusing and unrealistic story about an Irish girl’s involvement with IRA bombing in London and her subsequent hunger strike.
October 15, 2020
A terrorist on hunger strike thinks back to her childhood, the friends she had then, and how reconnecting with them as an adult led her to this situation.
October 25, 2025
I'm finding this series of Faber Stories addictive for fitting into busy days or for reading at times when my mind is travelling at a different speed to my body.
Today's little gem is Daughters of Passion by Julia O'Faolain, a new to me author. This story is a political tale about a young woman in an English prison, hunger striking for political status, after murdering a detective with an IRA bomb in London.
As she resists the attempts to feed her, she reflects on her childhood as an orphan, being brought up in a convent, her friendships with the two women pivotal to her current situation, and the way in which some paths are accidentally inevitable.
'Brought up by nuns, she had lost her faith, found another, fought for it and been imprisoned.'
I liked this story and enjoyed O'Faolain's writing style. This is the type of story that I'd like to read expanded out into a novel, I was definitely left wanting from this one, which I've come to see as the benchmark for a great short story.
Today's little gem is Daughters of Passion by Julia O'Faolain, a new to me author. This story is a political tale about a young woman in an English prison, hunger striking for political status, after murdering a detective with an IRA bomb in London.
As she resists the attempts to feed her, she reflects on her childhood as an orphan, being brought up in a convent, her friendships with the two women pivotal to her current situation, and the way in which some paths are accidentally inevitable.
'Brought up by nuns, she had lost her faith, found another, fought for it and been imprisoned.'
I liked this story and enjoyed O'Faolain's writing style. This is the type of story that I'd like to read expanded out into a novel, I was definitely left wanting from this one, which I've come to see as the benchmark for a great short story.
June 22, 2021
The build-up of the story is scattered but well-formed. And the base is good too. Should it be a little more gore and dark, I would have enjoyed it. Plus, the writing is witty.
December 29, 2021
I kind of liked this to be honest. The ending was a bit short-story-ish but I thought it was well done overall. 3.5 stars.
Read
May 5, 2023interesting story with good writing
August 13, 2025
Breves pinceladas, da amizade entre três mulheres, de como os motivos e histórias pessoais viram propriedade coletiva em contextos de conflito, de como pequenas decisões do passado -às vezes nem próprias- determinam o devir da vida. E de como os ingleses são os filhos dum cão, também.
April 24, 2024
the one where she is arrested for being an IRA terrorist & goes on food strike
this explored so many interesting ideas on delusion, friendship> family & the unreliability of humanity! i am falling back in love with irish fiction, it just has something sharp about it that i adore, and i need to read more on the IRA- i really enjoyed this
this explored so many interesting ideas on delusion, friendship> family & the unreliability of humanity! i am falling back in love with irish fiction, it just has something sharp about it that i adore, and i need to read more on the IRA- i really enjoyed this
Read
December 12, 2024I enjoyed this collection quite a lot. I picked up O'Faolain off the shelf in the library on a whim; next to try some of her novels.
January 7, 2024
"Half the trouble in the world, comes from people asking too much of themselves"
This was actually extraordinary in its own way, but it loses itself in a false sense of passion towards loved ones.
We find Maggy in a jail cell, currently in a hunger strike. When reading this I think it'd be best to familiarize yourself with The Troubles, because this short novella has no room or time to hold your hand through it. I'm rather naive on this topic not knowing a whole much so as far as accuracy goes, I couldn't account for that.
But we quickly delve into Maggy meeting her friends Rosheen and Dizzy. She was left with Nuns when she was just a young kid, not knowing of her mother really at all. We learn that Dizzy is a bit agnostic but joined Catholicism school for the... 'fun' of it? Hard to say her motivations. Rosheen very devout in the teachings of Catholicism gets more or less exiled from it, and marries an abusive man named Sean. Maggy herself upon leaving school leaves to America for 8 years and makes her way to London where Rosheen has left her abusive husband to move in with Dizzy, and Maggy ends up living with them too.
Maggy throughout this appears apathetic to it all. Like she's just there not really inside her own body. When she's recalling these memories she doesn't come across as delusional from starvation, the writing actually making all interactions quite straightforward. It's only during the brief moments out of these memories that we see how hungry she is, and how that's messing with her feelings and body, making her weak and uncertain in this path.
I'm not sure if it's the writing or the length but when we find out WHY she's deemed on the side of the IRA and participating in a political hunger strike it seems completely outlandish. The reasons behind her setting off a bomb, and who she targeted with a bomb, was more about her allegiance to her friends Dizzy and Rosheen over anything political at all, albeit the Politics being the driving force behind this entire situation in the first place. We don't get much emotions from Maggy regarding Dizzy and Rosheen, no extreme declarations one way or another about how she feels about the friendships. So to make the decision to plant a bomb and take out someone seen as a "threat" was lacking a sense of reason for me. Not to mention, Rosheen and Dizzy don't even appear at the court hearing for her. Maggy's political stance was not entirely conveyed either. All we know of her is growing up in South Ireland, raised Catholic. Off to America and then is in London for an indescriminate amount of time. I'm not sure though if in a mere 50 pages we could of gathered more in understanding from any of this should it of been written in a different way.
However, again, it truly is extraordinary in its own way. You're thrown into this and I couldn't help but be drawn to the premise of a woman locked in jail on hunger strike, with the background of The Troubles. The writing while vague in emotional territory is confident and welcoming. The ending is a left over question, not a perfect bow conclusion. I was okay with this as it gave me the opportunity to imagine Maggy in the way I think her story should end.
This was actually extraordinary in its own way, but it loses itself in a false sense of passion towards loved ones.
We find Maggy in a jail cell, currently in a hunger strike. When reading this I think it'd be best to familiarize yourself with The Troubles, because this short novella has no room or time to hold your hand through it. I'm rather naive on this topic not knowing a whole much so as far as accuracy goes, I couldn't account for that.
But we quickly delve into Maggy meeting her friends Rosheen and Dizzy. She was left with Nuns when she was just a young kid, not knowing of her mother really at all. We learn that Dizzy is a bit agnostic but joined Catholicism school for the... 'fun' of it? Hard to say her motivations. Rosheen very devout in the teachings of Catholicism gets more or less exiled from it, and marries an abusive man named Sean. Maggy herself upon leaving school leaves to America for 8 years and makes her way to London where Rosheen has left her abusive husband to move in with Dizzy, and Maggy ends up living with them too.
Maggy throughout this appears apathetic to it all. Like she's just there not really inside her own body. When she's recalling these memories she doesn't come across as delusional from starvation, the writing actually making all interactions quite straightforward. It's only during the brief moments out of these memories that we see how hungry she is, and how that's messing with her feelings and body, making her weak and uncertain in this path.
I'm not sure if it's the writing or the length but when we find out WHY she's deemed on the side of the IRA and participating in a political hunger strike it seems completely outlandish. The reasons behind her setting off a bomb, and who she targeted with a bomb, was more about her allegiance to her friends Dizzy and Rosheen over anything political at all, albeit the Politics being the driving force behind this entire situation in the first place. We don't get much emotions from Maggy regarding Dizzy and Rosheen, no extreme declarations one way or another about how she feels about the friendships. So to make the decision to plant a bomb and take out someone seen as a "threat" was lacking a sense of reason for me. Not to mention, Rosheen and Dizzy don't even appear at the court hearing for her. Maggy's political stance was not entirely conveyed either. All we know of her is growing up in South Ireland, raised Catholic. Off to America and then is in London for an indescriminate amount of time. I'm not sure though if in a mere 50 pages we could of gathered more in understanding from any of this should it of been written in a different way.
However, again, it truly is extraordinary in its own way. You're thrown into this and I couldn't help but be drawn to the premise of a woman locked in jail on hunger strike, with the background of The Troubles. The writing while vague in emotional territory is confident and welcoming. The ending is a left over question, not a perfect bow conclusion. I was okay with this as it gave me the opportunity to imagine Maggy in the way I think her story should end.
December 20, 2024
Make yourselves aware of certain Irish organisations and politics before reading as it gives the book so much more meaning😭 (I made the mistake of not reading about the ira).
I wish Julia O’faolain gave us more!! The story was really interesting and her writing style was so enjoyable but there was much missing! I want to know more whys and hows and hear about the relationships between certain characters. There just wasn’t enough!
The story has much potential and can be enjoyed as a one sitting read.
I wish Julia O’faolain gave us more!! The story was really interesting and her writing style was so enjoyable but there was much missing! I want to know more whys and hows and hear about the relationships between certain characters. There just wasn’t enough!
The story has much potential and can be enjoyed as a one sitting read.
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