Eileen Shanahan

Her best-known poem, The Three Children (Near Clonmel), has been republished five times since its original publication in The Atlantic Monthly in 1929, and was included in the Oxford Book of Irish Verse (1958).

She was born in Dublin, where her father George Shanahan (1856–1944) was Assistant Secretary of the Irish Board of Works, 1895–1921 and Honorary Treasurer of the Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland, 1925–44.

She also wrote a nativity play The Inn at Bethlehem, related in theme to her poem Epiphany, which was performed at the Theatre Royal, Dublin on 2 December 1928 and broadcast by Radio Eireann on Christmas Eve 1944.

The themes of her poetry include birth and childhood, the trials of love, the contrasts of passionate and cautious approaches to life, and Ireland and its predicament.

Many have a powerful sense of place, several, including The Three Children and Moon and Swan, being inspired by visits to her Hickie relatives at Clonmel, Co. Tipperary and another, Shankill, by the countryside near her childhood home at Dalkey.