Died 28 September 1943 | ||
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.
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Childhood
Llewelyn-Davies was one of five children of IRB Supreme Council member and later MP James O'Connor. He was IRB treasurer in 1870 and party to the discussions on the New Departure, a collaboration between constitutional and physical force nationalists, the open and the secret movements.
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.
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.
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 collaborated with 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.
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. She is thought to have helped Collins write his book The Path to Freedom.
Llewelyn-Davies died of cancer in Wicklow on 28 September 1943.