*A mural of Edna O’Brien at Wood Quay in Ennis. Photograph: John Mangan
EDNA O’Brien’s funeral is to take place in her native Co Clare in the coming weeks.
Family members of Edna have said her dying wish was to return home to East Clare one last time. She died on Saturday at the age of ninety three.
“She left this world in a very easy and peaceful way,” Edna’s nephew Michael Blake said. Her funeral will take place late next week at the earliest and will be held in Tuamgraney Church and she will be buried on Holy Island but formal arrangements have yet to be confirmed.
Michael was with his aunt up until her death in London but she issued instructions over ten years ago which expressed her wish to be brought home for a service in Tuamgraney, the same church where she was christened and had communion.
O’Brien’s family have confirmed that she will be buried at the historic Holy Island with a trip to be made by boat following the funeral.
Blake recounted that Edna “always loved coming home to Ireland, but often said it was easier to write about Ireland from outside of it” while enjoying the anonymity of places like London.
From spending the final hours with Edna in London, Michael has flown to Paris where he is the Chef D’Equipe of the Irish senior showjumping team competing in the Olympics. He said she was a “fanatic sportswoman who loved soccer, jumping, racing, you’d find it hard to imagine how interested she was in all sports”.
He said Edna was “one of the bravest women” he ever knew and noted, she was “brave when it was hard to be brave” and “what needed to be said, she said it, that’s the way to live”.
Last year, a mural was commissioned by Clare County Council of Edna which is located at Wood Quay in Ennis.
One of the last pieces of writing done by Edna was a speech in May which was read aloud at the renaming of the library in Scariff in her honour. “She was absolutely chuffed with that,” Michael said on having the library named after her, “she was really delighted with it”.
She was unable to attend the event but the reading of her letter was among the highlights of the evening.
“I’m very honoured to have the library named after me, I hope it doesn’t fall down. Why did I love it? Because I learned bits of poems, bits of history and bits of folklore that I would otherwise not have known or gone towards. I read extracts of great books and recitation, the Midnight Court in Irish was one of my favourites, I don’t think I was very sociable, I liked to have others around me rather than the silence at home and I came across some of the more vivid accounts in Irish history and it was a stepping stone to worlds beyond. Buildings and walls and places carry in them stories that came before so I’ve good memories of my time there and what was instilled in me, I’ve said enough, good luck,” she wrote.
