Boston Irish Poet + Writer Louise Imogen Guiney

Boston's Louise Imogen Guiney, a leading Catholic poet and essayist of her day, died in England on November 2, 1920.

Born in Roxbury in 1861, Louise was the only daughter of Irish immigrants. Her father, General Patrick Guiney of the Massachusetts Irish Ninth Regiment, was a war hero in the American Civil War. As a child, Louise traveled with her mother to Virginia, where her father was stationed.

In 1881, at age 20, Guiney began publishing poems in the Boston Pilot. Initially she published under the initials P.O.L. with references to Latin, Greek and Medieval poetry, and readers assumed she was ‘a bright Harvard boy.’ By year's end she was publishing under her full name.

She published a number of books, including Songs at the Start (1883), Goose-Quill Papers and The White Sail. Her final work was entitled Happy Endings.

In 1894, President Grover Cleveland appointed Guiney as the Postmaster in Auburndale, just outside of Boston, and her appointment prompted protests by nativists who were anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic. In response to this treatment, people from around the country began ordering stamps from her Post Office, effectively silencing the critics. She held the post until 1897.

President Theodore Roosevelt once praised Louise and her late father, General Guiney, saying, “That is the Boston quality which we admire, the combination of fighting blood with literary ability."

Guiney later moved to England, where she was a popular speaker and spent her final years there, doing research and writing poems and essays. In 1904, she published a monograph on Irish patriot Robert Emmet: A Survey of His Rebellion and Romance.

Tthe Boston Public Library has a collection of Guiney's correspondence and letters.

The Burns Library at Boston College has a collection of Louise I. Guiney papers. In 2020, Boston College opened an exhibit called, Devoted Catholic and Determined Writer: Louise Imogen Guiney. Guiney is one of just two women authors represented in stained glass windows at BC's Bapst Library.

Read about other Boston Irish women at IrishMassachusetts blog.

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