Letts, Winifred Mary

(1882-1971)

   She was born in Manchester or Cheshire of an English father and Irish mother and educated in Bromley, Kent, and Alexandra College, Dublin. During World War I she worked as a nurse at various base hospitals. After her marriage to William Henry Foster Verschoyle, of Kilberry, County Kildare, in 1926, they lived in Dublin and County Kildare. When he died, she lived for many years in Faversham, Kent, returning to Killiney, Dublin, where she lived until the late 1960s. She died in the Tivoli Nursing Home, Dun Laoghaire, Dublin. Her novels, plays, children's fiction, and poetry have strong Irish connections, and some of her poems were set to music by C.V. Stanford. Some of her publications: Songs of Leinster, 1913. Hallow-e'en and Poems of the War, 1916. The Spires of Oxford, and Other Poems, 1917. More Songs of Leinster, 1926. Some of her poems: "Boys," "Casualty," "Irish Skies," "My Blessing Be on Waterford," "The Chapel on the Hill," "The Children's Ghosts," "The Connaught Rangers," "The Deserter," "The Harbour," "Tim, an Irish Terrier," "To a Soldier in Hospital."

   Sources: Oldpoetry (www.oldpoetry.com). Scars Upon My Heart: Women's Poetry and Verse of the First World War. Catherine W Reilly, ed. Virago Press, 1981. The Book of a Thousand Poems: A Family Treasury. J. Murray Macbain, ed. Peter Bedrick Books, 1983. The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). Treasury of Irish Religious Verse. Patrick Murray, ed. Crossroad, 1986.