Eileen O'Faolain and the Six of Cups
Children’s writer, folklorist, and political activist Eileen O’Faolain was born Eileen Gould in 1902 in County Cork in a fiercely nationalist household. As a university student at University College Cork, she met and later married Seán, then John Whelan, who changed his name in 1918 as a statement of patriotic identity. Eileen was imprisoned during the War of Independence — a fact rarely foregrounded in accounts of her life. It is telling that even now, in the digital age, no photograph of Eileen is readily found online. Only her husband, and later, their daughter Julia O'Faolain, appear in visual archives — a silence that speaks volumes about the invisibility of Eileen’s creative labour.
After their marriage in 1928, the couple spent years abroad in Boston and London before returning to Ireland where her own writing flourished. Her work in the 1940s and beyond, most notably Children of the Salmon, and Other Irish Folktales, was an act of cultural preservation, a homage to the traditions of her youth. She took great care to ensure authenticity, choosing tales that pulsed with the rhythm of Irish belief and wonder. Her books became a balm for young readers and for a fragmented nation.
From the 1940s onward, Eileen was plagued by near-chronic illness. Her daughter would later describe many of these conditions as “stress-maladies,” psychosomatic responses to her husband’s numerous infidelities. In that context, her retreat into children’s literature reads not as escapism but as resistance — an act of refuge and reclamation. When life grew unbearable, she walked the ancient paths of Irish myth, crafting a world where justice came, where endings were happy, and where characters could be safe.
Eileen O’Faolain died in 1988. Her husband followed three years later. Her stories — less famous than her husband’s, yet still endure — continue to shape the memory of a culture so often at risk of forgetting the women who kept it alive.
The Six of Cups
The Six of Cups is a soft echo from the past — a card of memory, innocence, and emotional grounding. When it appears, it invites us to pause, to revisit not just where we’ve been, but how we once felt: safe, open, full of wonder.
At first glance, this is a simple card — often showing two children in a garden, one offering a cup filled with flowers to the other. The Six of Cups doesn't suggest a return to the past as a place to live, but as a place to gather wisdom — to recall who you were before you were hardened or guarded by experience. What made you feel safe, before the world became unpredictable?
Whether you are revisiting a story, an old friend, or a long-lost dream, the Six of Cups offers the permission to do so with tenderness. What forgotten sweetness is asking to be remembered?
In the language of the Tarot, Eileen’s experience exemplifies the Six of Cups — a card of memory, of childhood sweetness, of longing for a gentler past. Her stories offer that glimpse of innocence, not as denial, but as a guide: a reminder that we carry the best of what came before with us, even as we face what is now. In her pages, the lost things return, children remain safe, and the world is still full of wonder.
Sources
Julia O´Faolain, Trespassers: A Memoir. London: Faber & Faber 2013