Moya Llewelyn-Davies

Moya Llewelyn-Davies, born Mary Elizabeth O'Connor, (25 March 1881 - 28 September 1943) was an Irish Republican activist during the Irish War of Independence and a Gaelic scholar.

Childhood

Llewelyn-Davies was one of five children of IRB member and later MP James O'Connor.

In 1890, when Moya's father was a journalist, Moya's mother Mary O’Connor, and four of her sisters – Annie, Aileen, Kathleen and Norah – died after eating poisoned mussels gathered on the seashore near where they lived in what became known as the Seapoint tragedy. Moya was violently ill, but survived.^[1]

Marriage and children

Llewelyn-Davies travelled to London after a falling out with her stepmother six years later. She found work as a civil servant and a paid speaker for the Liberal Party.

In 1910, she married lawyer Crompton Llewelyn Davies, a brother of Arthur Llewelyn Davies. They had two children Richard and Catherine.^[2]

Irish War of Independence

Following the Easter Rising, Llewelyn-Davies took her two children to Ireland and bought Furry Park, a crumbling mansion near Dublin. She became a spy for Michael Collins during the War of Independence and her home became one of Collins' many safe houses as he directed the war. Llewelyn-Davis was arrested and imprisoned in 1920.

Llewelyn-Davies said in later life that she and Collins had been lovers, but the controversial revisionist historian Peter Hart claimed she was a stalker.^[3]

Literary work

Llewelyn-Davies made a lasting contribution to Irish literature with a translation, with George Thomson, of the Muiris Ó Súilleabháin book Fiche Bliain faoi Bhláth as Twenty Years a-Flowering.^[4] She is thought to have helped Collins write his book The Path to Freedom.^[5]

Llewelyn-Davies died of cancer in Wicklow on 28 September 1943.

References