George Moore

George Moore was born on the family estate, Moore Hall, in Mayo in 1852 and was educated in England. His father, a Catholic landowner, was an Independent Member of Parliament and the family moved to London in 1869 where Moore attended art school. He later trained at the Académie Juliard in Paris, where he met many key impressionist artists, including Degas, Manet and Pissarro, as well as eminent writers like Zola and Mallarmé. Accepting he had little talent for painting, Moore turned his attention to becoming a writer. His varied oeuvre comprises poetry and short story collections, novels, plays, art criticism and memoirs. Moore’s naturalism, influenced by modern French fiction, was innovative in English literature at the time and influenced in turn Joyce’s realism. Among Moore’s most famous works are the novel Esther Waters (1894), the collection of stories set in Ireland, The Untilled Field (1903), and the acerbic autobiographical trilogy Hail and Farewell (1911-14), completed after his permanent return to London following a decade spent in Ireland. Between 1901 and 1911, Moore had been involved in the Irish Literary Theatre and had contributed several plays, including Diarmuid and Graine, which he co-wrote with Yeats. George Moore died at his London home in 1933. His ashes were interred on Castle Island in Lough Carra, in view of the ruins of Moore Hall.