Virtually unknown in Britain or in Ireland for many decades, Mairin Mitchell (1895-1986) has been relegated to the margins of literary history, despite her ample production in terms of poetry, fiction, travel books and maritime history. Her most famous book, Storm over Spain (1937), is a first-hand account of a journey throughout Andalucia in the previous months to the conflict that would tear Spain apart for the following three years. It was praised by George Orwell as a reliable study to understand the Spanish Civil War.
Although she had a long career, Mitchell is basically a writer of the 1930s; she acquired her political ideas through her contact with British anarchists and received the influence of Irish revolutionaries. She showed all her life a commitment to social justice and pacifist ideals, but above all she was a writer who followed very much her own course.
The And-Mitchell project is a research initiative funded by the Regional Government of Andalucia, Spain (Reference code P20_00790). The project assembles a team of scholars from the universities of Almería and Pablo de Olavide, in Spain, and the Waterford Institute of Technology, in Ireland, with the aim of exploring the life and work of Mairin Mitchell. We are also interested in developing methods of analysis of the writings by women writers of the 1930s.