Launch of memorial celebrating the work of Winifred Mabel Letts (1882-1972)

A MEMORIAL to celebrate the work of Winifred Mabel Letts was opened by President Michael D. Higgins at Rathcoole Parish Church on June 8th.

The event celebrated the work of the wartime poet and qualified masseuse, who is laid to rest in an unmarked grave at the cemetery in South Dublin.

Tallaght-born artist Patricia Donnelly made a sculpture in memorial of Winifred, which depicts the poet’s valuable work as a masseuse and pays tribute to her ñempathy.

Winifred M Letts Portrait by Boguslawa Marczakiewicz

Winifred Letts was born in England in 1882 to an Irish mother and an English father.

She came to Ireland as a teenager and attended Alexandra College.

Following her father’s death in 1904, Winifred moved with her mother to a house near Blackrock in Dublin.

Winifred’s writing career began to flourish from 1907.

In 1913 she became the second woman to have a play accepted by the Abbey Theatre, Lady Gregory being the first.

By 1914, she had published nine novels and a book of poems, and in 1915 she received medical training and practiced massage therapy, an early form of modern physiotherapy.

She worked in the nearby Linden Auxiliary Hospital in Dublin, providing this therapy to injured soldiers returning from war.

Mervyn Ennis presents President Michael D Higgins with handcarved presentations. Pictured credit Ian Campbell

She was later transferred to hospitals in England where she continued to treat the war-wounded young men.

During this time Winifred Letts began to write poetry about the war.

The collection The Spires of Oxford was printed in 1917 and had as its theme the suffering and tragic loss of the many young men who volunteered to serve in what was believed to be the ‘War to end all wars’.

Poems such as The Deserter and What Reward? demonstrate her profound engagement with both the psychological trauma and physical suffering of these young men.

President Michael D Higgins unveils a memorial plaque to Winifred Mabel Letts

Clients and staff of Rathcoole Daycare Centre welcome the President

Winifred’s empathetic acknowledgement of the humanity of her subjects stands in stark contrast to the narrative of the time when soldiers who deserted were the objects of public opprobrium and were dealt with by firing squad.

She was before her time in recognising that these traumatised young men were the victims of war rather than cowards.

Her work predates that of Wilfrid Owen, Robert Graves and Siegfried Sassoon, but she has not received similar recognition.

Winifred Letts married the widower, William Henry Foster Verschoyle in 1926 at the age of 44.

He was the owner of the house and the lands now occupied by Citywest.

They had a happy marriage until his death in 1943.

Winifred herself died in 1972.

She is buried in an unmarked grave beside her husband in Rathcoole Parish Church Cemetery.

Winifred M Letts Inscrpition and Memorial Sculpture, The Way of Hands by Pat Donnelly. Pictured credit: Ian Campbell