George Moore

Biography

George Augustus Moore was born into a Roman Catholic Irish family on February 24, 1852. His family had taken residence at Moore Hall for nearly a century. Having come from a prominent and accomplished family, Moore was given many educational and cultural opportunities—thanks to the success of his father’s racing horse Croagh Patrick. Despite the many opportunities to attend school, Moore was both sickly and obstinante, refusing to follow his instructures lectures. Instead, he much rather preferred to dedicate himself to literature, spending hours reading novels and poetry. He was eventually expelled for (according to Moore) his “idleness and general worthlessness”.

His father intended for Gerorge to join the military, but he did not. When his father passed away and George inherited the family estate, he delegated management to his brother Maurice so he could continue his artistic education. Attracted to the arts from a young age, he decided to study painting in Paris, but was soon drawn back to the written word. His first collection of poems The Flowers of Passion received rough criticism and he was forced to put his literary career on hold to return to Ireland and assume his duties as master of the estate. While home, he decided to completely abandon art and dedicate himself more fully to literature, this time in London. As he began to publish and critique more profusely and attitudes towards French Realism improved, he gained a following, and many critics praised his work.

Moore was involved in multiple literary circles, being a novelist, a poet, a short-story writer, a memoirist, a dramatist and a literary critic. His writing was heavily influenced by French realists, and was one of the very first English writers to script these philosophies. Because his work dealt with such themes as prostitution, extramarital sex, and homosexuality (particularly lesbianism), there were those who disapproved of his breaking away from the Victorian traditions of his time. However, the masses that made up Moore’s readership grew increasingly intrigued by these new trends in literature and he was met with less opposition. Moore also wrote in tandem with the Irish Literary Revival, coordinating with many other writers and poets in an attempt to shed new light on Celtic traditions and encourage Irish nationalism.

Later in his life, during the Irish Civil War, Moore’s brother Maurice became involved with pro-treaty activists and as a result, their estate at Moore Hall was burned. The schism between the brothers grew as they divided lands and faced religious differences (George had declared himself Protestant in contrary to their Roman Catholic traditions).  Moore died in London in 1933, leaving a large fortune, and was cremated. His remains were buried on Castle Island, viewing the ruins of his family’s estate.

Moore’s writing’s inspired many other modernist authors like James Joyce.