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So, around the time I published my most recent blog about Irish authors, I put out an APB to the members of my book group and asked them to list some of their favorite books/authors. I wanted to get my blog out as soon as possible, so published. Soon, though, the answers from the group started trickling in. Some of the books they recommend are repeats of mine (so will not include again), including The Spinning Heart by Donal Ryan and This is Happiness, by Niall Williams. Others are by authors I don’t know, and still others are by authors I’ve read somewhere along the … Continue Reading

Greetings from Corofin, and my apologies for the long hiatus. Blame it on summer, a rather unplanned move to new digs in town, and a quick trip back to the states to meet my daughter and work on her wedding in Maine next summer. Whew! Life has a way of deciding its own route. As late summer eases into fall and the great outdoors call us less and less for the warmth of a cozy house, the written word inevitably begins to cast its magical spell. A book come autumn is often pure delight, a companion, friend and educator, a way to assuage spirits that … Continue Reading

Not long ago, I was fortunate enough to give the sermon of a given Sunday at my “home” church, South Church Unitarian Universalist in Portsmouth, New Hampshire – this accomplished, of course, by Zoom and YouTube. Perhaps not surprisingly, I was asked to speak about Ireland, what brought me here, what spiritual nourishment I find here, what keeps me here. I was lucky to have as a partner that Sunday our director of music ministry, a former music teacher in my hometown who directs two very successful regional choruses. Joanne sings like an angel – perhaps an overworked metaphor but no less true for the … Continue Reading

The swans are back! I was not expecting them yesterday when I brought my book down to the banks of Lake Atedaun for a bit of sun and reading on a glorious, warm afternoon. Perhaps it was the tinkling sound of gravel under my foot, perhaps it was only the intake of my breath when I saw them so close to me near the shore, hunting for morsels of food. Startled, they took wing, not to flight but only to skim the surface of the lake, and thus escape this human intruder. Their great wings made such a sound as I have never heard, a … Continue Reading

Here on the west coast of Ireland, it is not only possible but expected to speak in very nearly human terms about the weather. Whimsical, moody, surprising, grumpy, glorious, mercurial, it is all of that and more. For instance, just now I was sitting at my desk in the living room looking out of the window at a perfectly and rarely blue sky – time for a walk while the gods bless me, I thought. But mere steps away, I was greeted at my kitchen window by darkly ominous clouds. Oh, oh, I thought. Best wait a minute. By the time I walked back to … Continue Reading

Let’s say it’s 1952, or 1963, or 1945. You’re a 15-year-old girl, growing up in rural Ireland. Control of your life, that of your parents, neighbors, community; the parents, neighbors, community in the next town over; and indeed in every hamlet and city in Ireland is ceded in its entirety to the Catholic Church. You are a cog in the wheel of a society that lives by uncompromising strictures. Shame is quickly earned and hard to erase, guilt is a bedrock value, life is confined to a narrow set of principles, the parish priest is God, or nearly so. Of the many outcomes of this … Continue Reading