Olivia Robertson


Olivia Melian Durdin-Robertson, known as Olivia Robertson was an author, artist, co-founder and high priestess of the Fellowship of Isis.

Early life and education

Born at St Mary's Hospital in London, Olivia Robertson was descended from the theologian Richard Graves, a cousin of the author Robert Graves, and was a grandchild of Thomas Herbert Robertson. She was the second of four children born to Nora and Manning Durdin-Robertson, an architect and town planner and a friend of the poet W. B. Yeats. Her family lived in Reigate in Surrey before moving back to their ancestral home Huntington Castle in Ireland, which had been inherited in 1925 on the death of her grandmother. From 1938 Robertson was educated at Heathfield School, Ascot and the Grosvenor School of Modern Art.
Following the outbreak of World War II, although a pacifist she served as a V.A.D. nurse in Bedfordshire in 1940. She studied at University College Dublin in 1942, and then worked at Dublin Corporation until 1946. In 1946 she published her first book, St. Malachy's Court. Further books followed, including Field of the Stranger, which was awarded the London Book Society's Choice award; The Golden Eye, Miranda Speaks, and It's an Old Irish Custom. Her book The Dublin Phoenix sold out on its first day.

Move to Huntington Castle

In 1960 Robertson moved back to Huntington Castle, the family home, with her brother, Lawrence Durdin-Robertson, and his wife Pamela. In 1963 she formed the Huntington Castle Centre for Meditation and Study with them. In 1976 the Fellowship of Isis was founded.
She wrote her spiritual autobiography The Call of Isis in 1975, and also Isis of Fellowship, concerned with how the Fellowship of Isis was founded. On 30 April 1988 she appeared as a guest on After Dark, a British late night live discussion programme broadcast on Channel 4.
In August 1993 Robertson was invited to attend the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago. The FOI was chosen to represent the Goddess movement. Breakfasting there with the Dalai Lama remained one of the high points of her life. A film of her life, Olivia: Priestess of Isis, was released on DVD in 2011.

Death

Robertson died in Wexford on 14 November 2013. Her funeral was a private ceremony held in the temple, organised by the Fellowship of Isis, followed by a public Church of Ireland service at St Fiacc’s in Clonegal. An obituary was written in The Telegraph.

Publications