| Collection Description | Anna Patricia (Nancy) McCarthy was born in 1902 to Charles and Annie McCarthy, one of ten children,
three girls and seven boys. Her father owned a plumber’s shop in Emmet Place, Cork city, and was by all
accounts a successful businessman. Along with her sisters Nancy was a boarder at the Brigidine Convent,
Mountrath, Co. Laois. After qualifying as a Chemist she went to work for a number of chemists, e.g. Boots
in Birmingham, England. She moved back to Cork city to work in Blair’s Chemist, Patrick Street, Cork, in
[1926] and later, in a move unusual for a single woman at that time, opened her own chemist shop in
Douglas in 1946. She retired in 1986, and died in October 1988, aged 86. Throughout her life Nancy
played an active and influential role in the cultural life of Cork city. As a young amateur actress she
performed with the Cork Drama League, meeting there the writer Frank O’Connor (then known as Michael
O’Donovan) with whom she had a romantic relationship and long standing friendship. Through O’Connor
Nancy met many of the artistic and literary figures of her day and as her correspondence reveals, became
a friend and confident to many. Her love of rural Ireland and the Irish language led her to spend many
holidays in the Cork/Kerry Gaeltacht where she became one of the circle gathered around the fireside of
the Tailor and Antsy in Gougane Barra. In later life, she was a committee member of the Cork Orchestral
Society, and an enthusiastic follower of the Cork Ballet Company and the Cork Film Festival. Donated to
UCC Library in 1998 by Harriet O’Donovan-Sheehy, widow of the Cork born writer Frank O’Connor and
Executrix of Nancy McCarthy’s estate. [UCC Special Collections and Archives] |
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