May Laffan

Born on 3 May 1849 to Michael Laffan and Ellen Saran Fitzgibbon in Dublin, Hartley was educated in the Dominican Convent of Sion Hill and Alexandra College. She had an older brother, William, two younger brothers, Michael and James, as well as two younger sisters, Ellen Sarah and Catherine. After school Hartley worked with Fr. Meehan as a social worker in the Liberties. She also began writing with articles such as 'Convent Boarding Schools for Young Ladies' submitted to Fraser's Magazine (June 1874).{{cite book|author=Ciaran O'Neill|title=Catholics of Consequence: Transnational Education, Social Mobility, and the Irish Catholic Elite 1850–1900|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=q2agAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA162|date=12 June 2014|publisher=OUP Oxford|isbn=978-0-19-101746-9|pages=162–}}{{cite book|author=John Sutherland|title=The Longman Companion to Victorian Fiction|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9mOuBAAAQBAJ&pg=PT348|date=13 October 2014|publisher=Taylor & Francis|isbn=978-1-317-86332-8|pages=348–}}

She began writing novels but her early work was poorly received and she had a breakdown. However she continued to write and publish novels. She was also active in the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children.

In 1880 Fannie Gallaher published her early novel Katty the flash: a mould of Dublin mud. It was published under the pseudonym of Sydney Starr.{{Cite book |last=Starr |first=Sydney |title=Katty the flash: a mould of Dublin mud |publisher=M. H. Gill & Son |year=1880}} Katty the Flash was successful and it was republished in the New York Sun who attributed their heavily amended story to Laffan.{{Cite web |title=Gallaher, Francesca (Fannie) Mary {{!}} Dictionary of Irish Biography |url=https://www.dib.ie/index.php/biography/gallaher-francesca-fannie-mary-a10268 |access-date=2022-10-11 |website=www.dib.ie}}

Gallaher's letter of protest about the plagiarism and the unwelcome changes to her story was published in 1883. The New York Sun's editor was criticised by the Weekly Irish Times. The confusion continued with a modern index still attributing Gallaher's story to Hartley.{{Cite book |last1=Deane |first1=Seamus |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qZ6W1LiIyYYC&dq=Fannie+Gallaher&pg=PA927 |title=The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing |last2=Carpenter |first2=Andrew |last3=Bourke |first3=Angela |last4=Williams |first4=Jonathan |page=927|date=1991 |publisher=NYU Press |isbn=978-0-8147-9907-9 |language=en}}

In 1882 she married Walter Noel Hartley who was a chemistry professor at King's College, London and Fellow of the Royal Society.{{cite web |url=https://www.royalsoced.org.uk/cms/files/fellows/biographical_index/fells_indexp1.pdf |title=Former Fellows Of The Royal Society Of Edinburgh. 1783–2002 |newspaper=The Royal Society of Edinburgh|page= 423 |author= |accessdate= 22 October 2016}} During her marriage she was no longer writing very much. Her issues with mental health continued and in 1910 Hartley was admitted to Bloomfield Hospital. Her husband was knighted in 1911 and died suddenly in 1913. They had one son, Walter John Hartley.{{cite web |url=http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1901/Dublin/Pembroke_West/Waterloo_Road/1289479/ |title=National Archives: Census of Ireland 1911 |newspaper=Census.nationalarchives.ie |date= |author= |accessdate= 21 October 2016}} Born 25 April 1889, he was killed in Gallipoli, a captain in the Royal Irish Fusiliers, 16 August 1915.{{cite web |url=http://www.willcalendars.nationalarchives.ie/reels/cwa/005014919/005014919_00160.pdf |title=Military will for WJ Hartley |newspaper=Willcalendars.nationalarchives.ie |date= |author= |accessdate= 22 October 2016}}

Lady Mary Hartley died in hospital in 1916.{{citation|author=Angela Bourke|title=The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qZ6W1LiIyYYC&pg=PA974|year=2002|publisher=NYU Press|isbn=978-0-8147-9907-9|pages=974–}} An anthology notes that Laffan (and Gallaher)'s works described Irish urban settings in a way that was continued by James Joyce and James Stephens.

• Hogan, M.P. (London: Macmillan 1876)
• The Hon. Miss Ferrard (1877; 2nd edn. London: Macmillan 1881)
• The Game Hen Flitters, Tatters, and the Counsellor: Three Waifs from the Dublin Streets (1879; 2nd edn. London: Simpkin & Marshall 1883)
• A Singer's Story (1885)
• Ismay's Children (1887)
• Christy Carew (1880; London: Macmillan 1882)

• {{cite book|author=James H. Murphy|title=Catholic Fiction and Social Reality in Ireland, 1873–1922|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BJsGNNHv9CYC&pg=PA36|year=1997|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|isbn=978-0-313-30188-9|pages=36–}}
• {{cite book|author=James H. Murphy|title=Irish Novelists and the Victorian Age|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1XAVDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA163|date=13 January 2011|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-959699-7|pages=163–}}
• {{cite book|author=Helena Kelleher Kahn|title=Late Nineteenth-century Ireland's Political and Religious Controversies in the Fiction of May Laffan Hartley|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CK5kokl6RQ4C|date=1 January 2005|publisher=ELT Press, University of North Carolina at Greensboro|isbn=978-0-944318-18-8}}
• {{cite book|author1=Paddy Lyons|author2=John Miller|author3=Willy Maley|title=Romantic Ireland: From Tone to Gonne; Fresh Perspectives on Nineteenth-Century Ireland|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=91wxBwAAQBAJ&pg=PA238|date=17 October 2013|publisher=Cambridge Scholars Publishing|isbn=978-1-4438-5358-3|pages=238–}}
• {{cite book|author=Luke Gibbons|title=Joyce's Ghosts: Ireland, Modernism, and Memory|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ko7JCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA250|date=13 November 2015|publisher=University of Chicago Press|isbn=978-0-226-23620-9|pages=250–}}
• {{cite book|author=Brendan Walsh|title=Knowing Their Place: The Intellectual Life of Women in the 19th Century|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gSibBAAAQBAJ&pg=PT76|date=1 September 2014|publisher=History Press|isbn=978-0-7524-9871-3|pages=76–}}
• {{cite book|author=David Dickson|title=Dublin: The Making of a Capital City|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2524BAAAQBAJ&pg=PA613|date=17 November 2014|publisher=Harvard University Press|isbn=978-0-674-74444-8|pages=613–}}
• {{cite book|author=John Bew|title=Castlereagh: A Life|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ed5eAJVCl6kC&pg=PT599|date=1 September 2012|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-997724-6|pages=599–}}
• {{cite book|author=Kali Israel|title=Names and Stories: Emilia Dilke and Victorian Culture|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XOizKlLaMTkC&pg=PA308|year=2002|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-802864-2|pages=308–}}
• {{cite book|author=W.B. Yeats|title=Letters to the New Island: A New Edition|url=https://archive.org/details/letterstonewisla00yeat_0|url-access=registration|date=24 October 1989|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan UK|isbn=978-1-349-09425-7|pages=[https://archive.org/details/letterstonewisla00yeat_0/page/193 193]–}}
• {{cite book|author1=Robert Welch|author2=Bruce Stewart|title=The Oxford Companion to Irish Literature|url=https://archive.org/details/oxfordcompaniont00welc|url-access=registration|year=1996|publisher=Clarendon Press|isbn=978-0-19-866158-0}}

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Category:Writers from County Dublin

Category:Irish women novelists

Category:1849 births

Category:1916 deaths

Category:People educated at Alexandra College