Lorna Reynolds, who has died aged 91, was Professor Emeritus of Modern English at the National University of Ireland, Galway, having previously taught for 30 years at University College Dublin. She also wrote poetry and was the author of a critical biography of Kate O'Brien.
Her lifelong friendship with O'Brien began at a meeting of the Women Writers' Club. In her study, Kate O'Brien: A Literary Portrait, she argued that, while the subject of feminism was never openly raised in O'Brien's writing, the theme of her novels was the necessity for woman to be as free as man. It was also the theme of Lorna Reynolds's life.
She was born on December 17th, 1911, in Jamaica, one of the five children of Michael Reynolds and his wife, Theresa (née Redmond). Her father died when she was 10, and the family returned to Ireland. Having spent three years in Birr, Co Offaly, the family moved to Dublin and she completed her secondary education at the Dominican College, Eccles Street.
She then studied English at University College Dublin (UCD), where Cyril Cusack, Brian O'Nolan (Flann O'Brien) and Mary Lavin were among her contemporaries. She obtained a BA in 1933, an MA in 1935 and completed her PhD thesis on the Bible in 1940.
Shortly after graduating, deciding that a life dedicated to learning was as honourable as a life in law, medicine or commerce, she joined the UCD teaching staff. A feature of UCD at the time was the rigid segregation of male and female staff.
There was a Lady Professors' Room, a Men Professors' Room and a separate room for clerics. In accordance with the dress code, academic gowns were worn by the teaching staff. But Lorna Reynolds's flair could not be hidden by a gown. Her style of dress was sometimes flamboyant but always elegant. Likewise, her manner was always courteous but never less than direct.
Her ability to communicate, combined with her readiness to listen, greatly benefited her students, as did her intelligent and perceptive grasp of the texts on her course. She had a very strong presence in the classroom and commanded full attention when delivering a lecture. She was particularly effective in sharing her abiding love of English literature with generations of students in UCD and, later, in University College Galway (UCG). In her hands, one student recalled, Shakespeare came alive.
In 1966 she was appointed Professor of Modern English at UCG. She made an immediate impact, revitalising the department and organising conferences, among them the J.M.Synge centenary conference in 1971.
The Dublin Magazine published her early poetry and short stories in the 1940s. She was later a contributor to The Bell, Poetry Ireland, Arena, The Lace Curtain and Botteghe Oscure. Her translations of Italian poetry were highly regarded.
In the 1950s she edited the University Review (now the Irish University Review). With Robert O'Driscoll, she was editor of Yeats and the Theatre (1975) and The Untold Story: The Irish in Canada (1988).
A prominent member of the Women's Social and Progressive League in the 1940s, she was later active in the Anti-Censorship Board, the inaugural meeting of which was chaired by Maud Gonne. She joined in debates on the issues of the day at the Contemporary Club. A lively after-dinner speaker, she was regularly invited to address women's groups.
Through her espousal of progressive causes, and her involvement in the UCD Women Graduates' Association, she contributed to the advance of women's rights in Irish society and academic life. Her views, openly and forcefully expressed, did not always find favour with the UCD authorities - least of all with Michael Tierney, president of the college. But she could not remain silent in the face of injustice, ignoring her mother's words: "Lorna, is it not possible for you, occasionally, to turn a blind eye?".
As Irish delegate to various international writers' conferences, she met many of the leading European writers of the 20th century, including Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre, Halldor Laxness and Giuseppe Ungaretti. Italy was virtually a second home, and she enjoyed its culture, especially good food and wine. She delighted in entertaining friends and was an excellent cook.
Her interest in cooking began in childhood and continued throughout a busy academic career, during which she put many an inherited, modified and invented recipe to the test. She believed that "the palate must be pleased, the spirits lifted and the mind stimulated by the food we eat". Her cooking never failed to satisfy.
So impressed was the Italian novelist Ignazio Silone that he said she could have made a living as a chef in Paris. A book of her recipes, Tasty Food for Hasty Folk, was published in 1990.
In 1978 she returned from Galway to live in the family home off Merrion Road in Dublin. Explaining the relationship between her personality, her literary work and her cooking, she said: "I am a thorough-going character. Whatever I do, I like to do well, and that extends to polishing the silver."
Her sister, Mabel Fitzgerald-Smith, survives her.
Lorna Reynolds: born, December 17th, 1911; died, July 4th, 2003