Lilian Roberts Finlay:LILIAN ROBERTS Finlay, who has died aged 96, was a successful author – a career she embarked upon after raising a family and aged in her 60s.
After her children were reared, she won the third Maxwell House competition in 1982 with the title story, The Adultery.
She went on to write a biographical novel, Always in my Mind; its sequel, Forever in the Past; a book of short stories; and another novel, Stella. In 1998, when she was 83, she completed a fourth romance, Cassa.
She used perhaps more artistic licence than autobiographical detail in her first book, which had strong elements of the subjects she has always wished to write about.
She appeared on RTÉ television's Kenny Liveand read it on RTÉ's radio's Booktime
She was brought up in Ringsend, Dublin, where her mother had a small pub-cum-grocery shop.
Her father had died, without ever seeing her, after the battle of Ypres in the first World War. Her mother married again when she was nine to “a big handsome man”, who, according to Lilian’s biographical novel, had an interest in young girls. The family moved to a much larger house in Sandymount.
Her mother died when she was 19. She had not got on very well with Lilian, and was inclined to farm her out – mostly to her own mother. Lilian said that when she was a boarder at Mount Sackville, only her grandmother came to see her. Her own mother never visited.
She graduated from Mount Sackville and passed the Civil Service exam before going on to work for the Land Commission by day and doing a course at the Abbey School of Acting at night.
She soon discovered she did not have the dedication to be an actress, although she did write scripts for the stage.
These were rejected without comment by the Abbey director, Ernest Blythe.
When she asked for an explanation, he told her the archbishop of Dublin would close the theatre if he produced them and that instead of writing about sex and contraception, she should write about subjects that “would draw laughs, such as land disputes”.
Micheál Mac Liammóir and Hilton Edwards of the Gate Theatre were more sympathetic, and Lady Longford wrote to her explaining to her the rules of drama.
In 1939, she married Hugh Finlay, who worked in Aer Lingus, and they had 10 children.
To help with finances, Lilian Finlay wrote stories for women’s magazines, which served as her writing apprenticeship.
This experience helped especially after her husband changed his career and went to work for Shanahans Stamp Auctions in Dún Laoghaire.
Shortly after he took up his post, the chief executive was accused of embezzling funds by repaying assets with investors’ money.
Hugh Finlay was innocent and gave evidence against the chief executive, but then had to rejoin Aer Lingus at a much lower level than before.
To help out, Lilian took a job outside the home as a cleaning supervisor. She had never mixed with people earning low wages before, and she tried to write a TV script – but it was not accepted.
When her husband died suddenly, she went to Philadelphia for a year to work as a nanny, and when she returned home she wrote her novel, Stella, about how she had met a drug dealer.
Her son Fergus, now the chief executive of the Barnardos children's charity, worked as adviser to Dick Spring in the Garret FitzGerald-led coalition government. He published his political memoirs, Snakes and Ladders, and appeared with his mother at a joint signing in Navan.
She lived from 1975 until 2010 in an old Royal Irish Constabulary barracks in Dunsany, Co Meath, that, she said, “was steeped in history”.
She was predeceased by three of her sons: Derek, a Marist missionary priest in Oceana, Jeff, a Washington-based academic, and Max. Two others had died as infants. She is survived by three daughters and two other sons.
Lilian Roberts Finlay: born February 21st, 1915; died June 28th, 2011