Editors Reads Verdict
The novel that broke open Irish literary fiction for women — O'Brien's frankness about female desire and Catholic Ireland's suffocation of it was shocking in 1960 and remains fresh. The first of the Country Girls trilogy.
What We Loved
- The voice is completely distinctive — girlish and exact and entirely unsentimental about its own longing
- The portrait of rural Catholic Ireland in the 1950s is both affectionate and devastating
- The friendship between Caithleen and Baba — different as they are — carries the novel
Minor Drawbacks
- Some readers find Caithleen's passivity frustrating — she allows things to happen to her
- The novel ends at a point that feels incomplete until you know it is the first of a trilogy
Key Takeaways
- → Catholic Ireland in the 1950s organised itself around the suppression of female desire, and the women who felt it most acutely were those with the clearest minds
- → The friendship between a cautious romantic and a reckless pragmatist is one of fiction's most useful structural partnerships
- → The move from rural to urban Ireland was experienced as liberation and dislocation simultaneously
| Author | Edna O'Brien |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
| Pages | 215 |
| Published | January 1, 1960 |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Literary Fiction, Irish Fiction |
| Difficulty | Beginner |
| Best For | Readers of Irish fiction and literary fiction about female experience, and anyone interested in the literature of Catholic repression. |
Caithleen and Baba
Caithleen Brady lives with her alcoholic father in a farmhouse in rural County Clare. Her mother is gentle and anxious; her father is violent and drunk. Baba Brennan, her best friend, is the doctor’s daughter — sharper, more knowing, already calculating how to get out. When Caithleen’s mother dies (in circumstances the novel initially evades), both girls are sent to a convent school.
The convent sections have a comic ferocity — the rules, the petty humiliations, the nuns’ absolute certainty of their own righteousness — before the girls manage to get themselves expelled and make their way to Dublin.
The Banning
The Country Girls was published in 1960 and immediately banned in Ireland. O’Brien was burning an effigy of it on the priest’s instructions in the village of Tuamgraney. The ban was for its frankness about female sexuality — about Caithleen’s desire for Mr. Gentleman, about the girls’ pursuit of men in Dublin — and for its portrait of Catholic Ireland as a system of repression.
O’Brien continued the story in The Lonely Girl (1962) and Girls in Their Married Bliss (1964), completing the Country Girls Trilogy. All three were banned. O’Brien moved to London. The trilogy is now recognized as among the foundational works of Irish women’s fiction.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is "The Country Girls" about?
Caithleen Brady and Baba Brennan grow up in rural Clare in the 1950s, are sent to a convent school after Caithleen's alcoholic father threatens her mother, then escape to Dublin and the freedoms it promises. O'Brien's debut was banned in Ireland on publication — it described female desire and Catholic repression with unprecedented frankness.
Who should read "The Country Girls"?
Readers of Irish fiction and literary fiction about female experience, and anyone interested in the literature of Catholic repression.
What are the key takeaways from "The Country Girls"?
Catholic Ireland in the 1950s organised itself around the suppression of female desire, and the women who felt it most acutely were those with the clearest minds The friendship between a cautious romantic and a reckless pragmatist is one of fiction's most useful structural partnerships The move from rural to urban Ireland was experienced as liberation and dislocation simultaneously
Is "The Country Girls" worth reading?
The novel that broke open Irish literary fiction for women — O'Brien's frankness about female desire and Catholic Ireland's suffocation of it was shocking in 1960 and remains fresh. The first of the Country Girls trilogy.
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