2 Childhood Heroes, 2 Starkly Different Ends

A maternal cousin who blazed brightly and a paternal uncle who committed suicide

My cousin Jimmy, my great aunt Celia’s son—James Plunkett Kelly, who wrote under the pen name James Plunkett—was an acclaimed Irish novelist, dramatist, and short-story writer. His masterpiece, *Strumpet City*, depicts the 1913 Dublin Lockout and labor struggles with what critics called naturalistic grit.