She is not in the Dictionary of Irish Biography, although she does feature in Brian Cleeve’s book of Irish authors. I would not know about Sheila Pim had I not noticed that her book, The Flowering Shamrock (1949) was number four on Eason’s bestseller list for April-May 1949. I found it in the National Library, where I read it first, and then found a second-hand first edition of it in – of course – Chapters in Dublin, for E6.99 or thereabouts. The copy I bought has the name and Glasnevin address (as Gaeilge, in a printed stamp) of Risteard O Glaisne, the Cork Methodist Irish scholar, a date of 18-5-57, and an epigraph in sean-Ghaeilge. (see Note below)
In the short account of her life that Pim gave to Eason’s Bulletin in April 1949 she described herself (oddly) as ‘Anglo-Irish’, educated in Ireland, Switzerland and Cambridge, where she got her BA in 1931. (Was she one of the department-store Pims?) Then she trained as a shorthand typist and worked for several years for the RDS in Dublin. At some stage she developed ‘toxic goitre’ (a disfiguring, distressing condition) and wrote a handbook for convalescents, but mainly she wrote detective novels. The Flowering Shamrock however, she described as a ‘straight novel’, though her English publishers called it ‘a tale of delicious wit.’ on one of the title pages. The book is actually quite a serious, if occasionally playful, ‘state of the nation’ treatment of Ireland in the harsh late-winter/early-spring of 1947 seen through the eyes of a visiting English lecturer, Hermione Simon. As a novel, it lacks plot, but it is still a good read.
It starts off with vivid descriptions of Dublin life, the Dublin literary scene, Dublin suburbs and Dublin streets, and although Hermione notices that the people take a ‘melancholy pride’ in their slums being the worst in Europe, she doesn’t see any bare feet, but plenty of cold, bare legs in queues at fuel depots. In other ways, Ireland is a land of plenty compared to postwar Britain, there is no shortage of food, and nearly every butcher’s shop has a sign ‘Meat Posted Abroad’. She is staying with a Protestant suburban family, the Gavins. When she attempts to go to a local Mass with the daughter of the family, Olivia, just to see what it is like(Hermione’s own religion is never specified but she is not a Catholic), they cannot get in because the church is so packed. A crowded church is so rare in the Gavins’ experience that they did not foresee this, she points out. The Gavins are nonplussed at Hermione’s intention to see some of the country:
They warned her that she must not expect Irish villages to be pretty like English ones, nor Irish pubs to be the equivalent of ye old village inn, and that the best-known Irish beauty spots were places to avoid. They explained to her that the people she met down the country would tell her everything they thought she would like to hear, without regard to facts – underestimating miles, overestimating accommodation.
The Gavins still describe Aras an Uachtaran as the Viceregal Lodge, and Olivia’s mother will not invite Olivia’s Catholic friend Kevin to dinner because ‘she rather thought his family did not dine but had high tea.’ Down the country, Hermione comes into her own, walking, cycling and talking to everybody. She calls the phenomenon of rich English people settling in late 1940s Ireland, ‘the retreat from Moscow’, i.e. the Welfare State. Major Drake has come to Ireland because Irish people believe in the ‘eternal verities’, by which he means, freedom from State control, and low taxes, she notes with disgust. She stays with Irish nationalists, the Colmans (presumably Catholic) with whom she has many a lively argument about politics and culture. She has come armed with Nicholas Mansergh’s pamphlet Britain and Ireland, and has read Mitchel and Davitt. She enjoys their company and their opinions though she finds their refusal to give an inch on universal social welfare a bit shocking. In general, she finds ‘extreme Irish nationalists’,(though she does not agree with them) more likely than Protestants to identify with Europe and to send aid abroad. Irish Protestants she sees as culturally dislocated and backward-looking.
Some attitudes transcend religious difference, however. Eucharia, the Protestant Gavins’ charming maid (called after the Eucharistic Congress, Hermione is told), becomes ‘that slut Eucharia’ when she leaves them for better wages in England. The Catholic Colmans joke about the bishop’s pastoral deploring the mass departure of young women from the rural areas:
‘ ‘The flower of our womanhood’ ‘ quoted Maire. ‘I thought of Biddy Doyle and little Susie Slattery’. Everybody laughed.
Does Hermione/Pim share this attitude? Routine disparagement of working-class females who desert domestic service was lamentably common among British and Irish female novelists of the period, so maybe she does.
That aside, The Flowering Shamrock is very entertaining, featuring Sweeps tickets and dispensary tickets, a budding Catholic-Protestant romance,trade unions and strikes, proportional representation, a back-of-the-lorry political rally, a flight from Rineanna (soon to be Shannon) Airport, amateur theatricals and many other aspects of Irish life. She comments sadly on the banning of what are, from her descriptions of them, (she doesn’t mention the titles), the English translation of Brian Merriman’s The Midnight Court and Kate O’Brien’s The Land of Spices, and, incidentally, an edition of Home Chat. In general though she despises women’s magazines, for making Irish women aspire to be just like English ones.
Another of Pim’s non-detective novels was Other People’s Business, (1957), a strange but very funny book about the Irish souvenir trade. I had to cover my mouth reading it in the National Library Reading Room so as not to laugh out loud at times. There are round towers with thermometers up their sides, models of St Michan’s in Dublin with coffins on view, a Knock Shrine where Our Lady pops out if you put in a penny and ‘I picked up a thatched cottage and put it down again hastily as it started to play Galway Bay.’ There is social commentary here too, more poking fun at the wealthy and those who refuse to change, and – refreshingly – a spirited defence of suburban housing estates for the newly-wed. It is also insightful; she suggests that in some circles in Ireland, the fainne(there should be a fada on that ‘a’ but I can’t do it on this laptop) was the equivalent of the Old School Tie.
I wonder if Risteard O Glaisne enjoyed The Flowering Shamrock, or if he was mildly insulted at her description of Irish Protestants. Or maybe only Irish Catholics get on their high horses about being made gentle fun of? Any time I felt like bristling a little while reading both books, I reminded myself that Pim was a fair-minded, equal-opportunities tease.
Sheila Pim, The Flowering Shamrock (London: Hodder & Stoughton 1949)
________Other People’s Business (London: Hodder & Stoughton 1957)
Nicholas Mansergh, Britain and Ireland (London: Longmans, Green 1942).
Risteard O Glaisne wrote several books about Irish history including a history of Irish Methodists, Na Modhaigh: sceal pobal, sceal eaglaise (Baile Atha Cliath: Clochomhar 1998). There should be fadas on the ‘e’ of both scealta.
NOTE: The epigraph under Risteard O Glaisne’s printed name and address:
‘Tri Caindle forosnat cach ndorcha: fir, aicned, ecna.’
Clear Classic Books 
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