Helen Laird Curran was an actor in the vanguard Irish theater around 1900, active in the international suffragette and child advocacy movements, militant during the war of independence in Ireland, as well as a professional chemist and botanist.
The book I’m writing on my grandmother explores her experimental life choices through family archives. It imagines the promise of the arts and sciences for young women; and narrates something of her inventive work alongside friends who also committed to transforming Irish society and engaging with the wider world—freedom fighters, Kathleen Lynn & the circle of Jane Addams; writers and artists, Padraic & Mary Colum, Lily, Lolly, & Jack Yeats, John Bernard Flannagan; and scientist Robert Lloyd Praeger.
A first piece from the archives, Special Collections, University College, Dublin:
L for Lucia Joyce and her Lettrines
Irish Times February 2 2020
This book complements my work on the collections and writing of C.P. Curran, my grandfather, including
A Time, A Book, An Incalculable Loss
Irish Echo, July 20, 2022