If walls could talk: Old Limerick lane was once home to literary heavyweight

RECENTLY launched to much fanfare and ministerial visits, Limerick’s new ‘School Street’ boasted a strong connection with two of the city’s literary heavyweights long before its present incarnation.

The noted twentieth century novelist and playwright, Christopher Isherwood (1904-1986) spent a few years living in Roden House, Roden Street, while around the corner Frank McCourt (1930-2009) and his family lived on Barrack Hill.

Even though their childhoods were markedly different, both boys ended up as successful writers based in America. Ironically, Frank McCourt spent some of his youth living in a section of Roden House, by which time it had been converted to tenements.
Christopher Isherwood was born in 1904 near Manchester.

His father, Francis Edward was a soldier in the York and Lancaster Regiment, and his mother, Kathleen was the only daughter of a wine merchant.

In 1911, his father’s regiment was due to be transferred to lreland and stationed at Limerick. Kathleen was expecting a baby late in September thus preventing her from making the move.

Frank applied for leave, but was refused. Reports from colleagues stationed in Limerick were far from pleasant and one described the city as ‘the most Godforsaken dirty hole’ he had ever seen.

When Kathleen arrived in Limerick, she recorded her immediate impressions of the city: “It is rather a picturesque and dirty-looking old place with many big Georgian houses.”

Kathleen’s most pressing concern was to find a suitable house for her family. From early January, she viewed sixteen houses with their backyards of ‘unutterable gloom, and lodgings the size of palaces with paper peeling and blinds torn.’

However, her luck turned on the 7 January when she viewed Roden House on Roden Street.

Her diary entry captured the relief: “High grey walls bounded the house on two sides, covered with creepers, in front of the house were prim little box borders, a fountain and an apple tree, and a long glass veranda ran the whole length of the house and above were seven windows in a long row.” The family promptly took up residence.

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After initially attending boarding school in the UK, in 1913 Christopher Isherwood continued his schooling in Limerick. In the same year, he went to the movies – at the Gaiety on O’Connell Street – for the first time, and thus his lifelong interest with the film industry began.

Christopher attended the High School on Quinlan Street. At weekends he explored the city with his mother including the “old market which has sort of cloisters running all round supported by pillars and full of clusters of women in black shawls.”

Life was not always tranquil and Kathleen often commented on the “children in the lane, lawless hooligans who bang at the door and steal apples and flowers from the garden!”

Writing in 1912, Kathleen described Pery Square was quite like a decayed London square, and days out. “We went for a lovely walk to the Lax Weir over the fields, a raised path above river and bogs, lovely views of Limerick, the cathedral, the tower and flat green meadows in every direction.”

From the comfort of her drawing room, Kathleen sat and observed the birds in the garden, the iron gate with the crumbling urns and the apple trees close to the window.

In February 1913, Christopher took his first dancing lessons at the Royal George Hotel. The onset of the First World War brought the Isherwood’s time in Limerick to a close, and tragically, Frank’s father was killed at the Battle of Ypres in 1915; his mother died in 1960 aged 91.

Christopher’s university days brought him to Cambridge, where he was asked to leave in 1925, without a degree.
Isherwood's circle of friends included W. H. Auden and Cecil Day-Lewis. In 1929, Isherwood moved to Berlin where he began a relationship with Heinz Neddermeyer that lasted for a number of years and involved long periods of travel.

The onset of WW2 resulted in the end of their relationship. He subsequently witnessed with Auden, the Sino-Japanese War, a trip that produced one of a number of collaborations between the two writers, Journey to War (1938).

Following that brief sojourn, Isherwood moved to America where he became a citizen in 1946.
Isherwood’s prose was noted for its ‘sheer effortlessness and clarity.’ He was frequently described as a ‘supremely political writer with prodigious narrative gifts.’

Christopher’s best-known works include Goodbye to Berlin (1939), a semi-autobiographical novel which inspired the musical Cabaret.

Liza Minelli won an Oscar for her portrayal of the irrepressible Sally Bowles in the 1972 film adaptation. Others include A Single Man (1964), and Christopher and His Kind (1976).

On his approach to writing, Isherwood once remarked ‘I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking.’

He once said of himself ‘my friends and acquaintances make me a rather complex creature, part despot, part diplomat, then again, I’m sly… utterly ruthless and completely cynical. But I do make them laugh.’

From 1953, Isherwood lived with his partner, Don Bachardy, a painter and both later became involved in LGBT+ causes, though rarely direct activism.

Christopher Isherwood died on January 5, 1986 leaving a noted literary legacy. His long-term partner, Don, still lives in their Santa Monica home, where he paints and helps to manage the Christopher Isherwood Foundation.

If a reader has an image of Roden House, please email me: paul.obrien@mic.ul.ie

Dr Paul O’Brien lectures at Mary Immaculate College