a passion for writing

Jane made up stories before she could actually write and long before she started school. Her first story, composed at the age of two, was about animals at play. We hope to arrange publication of this charming short story with illustrations by Mary Gordon-Smith.

She was an avid reader of a wide range of books. Early favourites were Eleanor Farjeon (Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard), Enid Blyton (Malory Towers), Kenneth Grahame (Wind in the Willows). Later interests were Irish folklore and mythical stories from the West of Ireland, C. S. Lewis (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe), J.S. Tolkien ( The Fellowship of the Ring sagas). In fact ‘saga’ became a favourite word in her teenage vocabulary. ‘It’s a saga’, she would say.

Later still she discovered Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte and Charles Dickens but was deeply fascinated by the Greek myths and stories by Homer and Virgil. She had wanted to study Classical Civilisation and Drama at University. All these influences can be seen to some extent in her novel The Dream of Lorn in the Forest Tegoth while preserving her own unique voice.

Sorting through the considerable evidence of her creative writing – pages upon pages of it – it is a wonder how she managed to focus so keenly on her academic studies and everything else she was interested in. But Jane had a great joy in life, a fascination and a sense of commitment. She would have agreed with Virgil that fugit irreparabile tempus and always valued the corresponding O’Shaughnessy motto tempus fugit: ‘time flies’.

She wrote poetry intermittently. Some of these poems will appear on this website.