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Nancy McCarthy

Anna Patricia (Nancy) McCarthy was born in 1902 to Charles and Annie McCarthy

Nancy McCarthy was a prolific letter writer and her correspondence, held in Special Collections in the Boole Library UCC reveals insights into the literary scene in Cork, Ireland throughout the '30s, '40s and '50s in Ireland. Her role in the development and facilitation of the arts is in evidenced by the people she corresponded with – Eric Cross (Author), Cyril Cusack (Actor), Mícheál Mac Liammoir (Actor), Frederick May (Composer), William Maxwell (editor of The New Yorker when O’Connor contributed to the magazine), and Seamus Murphy (Sculptor).

She was an accomplished actress and appeared in plays by Ibsen, Chekhov and Daniel Corkery to great acclaim. Nancy struck up lifelong friendships with Frank O’Connor (to whom she was briefly engaged), with Seán O’Faolain, and with many of the other literary, artistic, patriotic and intellectual figures of her day who tried to shake free of the establishment that determined the cultural climate of pre fifties Cork. She opened her chemist's shop as a single woman in Cork in 1946.

Her papers have been donated to Special Collections UCC by Harriet O'Donovan Sheehy, widow of Frank O'Connor.