Born: 1853, Ireland
Died: 1930
Country most active: United Kingdom: Isle of Man
Also known as: Julia Crotty
This biography is republished from The Dictionary of Irish Biography and was written by Maria O’Brien. Shared by permission in line with Creative Commons ‘Attribution’ (CC BY) licencing.
Crottie, Julia M. (1853–1930), novelist, was born in Lismore, Co. Waterford. Educated privately by Miss Lizzie Fitzsimon, and by the Presentation nuns in Lismore, she emigrated to America but returned and lived in Ramsey, Isle of Man, for many years. She was a regular contributor to catholic periodicals, particularly magazines based in America. Her literary output of longer works was small: Neighbours (1900), The lost land (1902) and Innisdoyle neighbours (1920) are her only novels. They reflect the lifeless and stagnant atmosphere of rural Irish towns of the time. Neighbours and Innisdoyle neighbours recount the fate of would-be and returning emigrants, and The lost land is a historical novel set during the 1798 rebellion; it describes the extinction of republican idealism in a Munster town. Comparisons were made between her writing and representation of Irish rural life and the style of William Carleton. Crottie later returned to America; she died in 1930 and was buried in Lismore.