Constantine Fitzgibbon

Major Robert Louis Constantine Lee-Dillon FitzGibbon RSL (8 June 1919 – 25 March 1983) was an American-born Irish-British historian, translator and novelist.

Early life FitzGibbon was born in the United States in 1919, the youngest of four surviving children. His father, Commander Robert Francis Lee-Dillon FitzGibbon (1884–1954), Before his parents divorced in 1923, they had four surviving children, Frances Geraldine (wife of Harry Morton Colvile), Fannie Hastings, Georgette Winifred (wife of Claude Mounsey), and Constantine. From his father's later marriage to Kathleen Clare Aitchison, he was a half-brother of Louis FitzGibbon, author of a number of works about the Katyn massacre of Polish officers in 1940, by Soviet troops. In 1927, his mother married her second cousin, Bertram Winthrop (a nephew of Egerton Leigh Winthrop and cousin to Bronson Winthrop). They also divorced in 1931.

The family were descended from John "Black Jack" FitzGibbon, the 1st Earl of Clare, who was Lord Chancellor of Ireland and effected the Act of Union between Ireland and England in 1800, but in the following century the family faded into obscurity and the title died out. Constantine FitzGibbon's grandmother, Louisa, was daughter of Richard Hobart FitzGibbon, the third and last Earl; her husband, Capt. Gerald Normanby Dillon (sixth son of Henry Dillon, 13th Viscount Dillon), changed his name to FitzGibbon, so the name could continue. His maternal great-grandfather was George Folsom, the U.S. Chargé d'affaires to the Netherlands from 1850 to 1853.

He was brought up in the United States and France before moving to England with his mother, his parents having divorced when he was very young.

Education

FitzGibbon was educated at Wellington College, Berkshire, a British public (i.e. private) school with military affiliations, which he detested. before becoming a full-time independent writer. He lived in Italy for a time, where Norman Douglas "reluctantly agreed to cooperate with [him] on an authorized biography". He gave up on the biography, although in 1953 he wrote a short book about Douglas, and in 1974 he published an article entitled "Norman Douglas: Memoir of an Unwritten Biography". Douglas's first wife, Elsa FitzGibbon, was related to FitzGibbon on her father's side. Between 1950 and 1965, FitzGibbon lived in England.

FitzGibbon wrote prolifically, authoring over 30 books, including nine novels, historical works, memoirs, poetry, and biography. He made programmes for BBC radio, including documentaries about British fascism, the Blitz,

He then married Marion Gutmann in 1960, with whom he had a son, Francis, born in 1961. Their marriage ended in 1965, and he moved to Ireland and married Marjorie Steele, a retired American actress, in 1967. They had a daughter, Oonagh (born 1968), for whom he wrote Teddy in the Tree (1977). He also adopted Marjorie's son, Peter FitzGibbon, from her former marriage. After a short spell in west Cork, the family lived in Killiney, County Dublin, and then in the city.

FitzGibbon died in Dublin on 25 March 1983.

Publications The Arabian Bird (1949) The Iron Hoop (1950) Dear Emily (1952); US-edition as Cousin Emily Miss Finnigan's Fault (1953) Norman Douglas: A Pictorial Record (1953) The Holiday (1953) The Little Tour (1954) The Shirt of Nessus (1956); US-edition as 20 July, New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 285 p. (1956) In Love and War (1956) The Blitz (1957) Paradise Lost and More (1959) Watcher in Florence (1959) The Vine Presse When the Kissing had to Stop (1960); new edition (posthumous), (1989) Adultery Under Arms (1962) Going to the River (1963) Random Thoughts of a Fascist Hyena (1963) The Life of Dylan Thomas (1965 ed.) Selected Letters of Dylan Thomas (1966 ed.) Through the Minefield (1967) Denazification (1969) High Heroic (a novel about the life of Michael Collins) (1969) Out of the Lion's Paw (1969) London's Burning (1970) Red Hand: The Ulster Colony (1971) The Devil at Work (1971) (play) A Concise History of Germany (1972) In the Bunker (1973) The Life and Times of Eamon de Valera (1973) The Golden Age (1976) Secret Intelligence (1976) Man in Aspic (1977) Teddy in the Tree (1977) Drink (1979) The Rat Report (1980) The Irish in Ireland (1982) and translations from French, German and Italian. Translator of the Rudolf Höß "autobiography". Contributor to Encyclopædia Britannica, newspapers and periodicals in Britain, America and elsewhere.

When the Kissing Had to Stop The novel was adapted by Giles Cooper in two episodes as part of the ITV Play of the Week series, first broadcast on 16 & 19 October 1962. Directed by Bill Hitchcock, it starred Denholm Elliott, Peter Vaughan and Douglas Wilmer. Only the first episode still exists.