Recordpub.com - One for the Books: A Vicarious Vacation in Ireland

I've been traveling all around Ireland, in the pages of some marvelous books.

"An Irish Country Girl" is the fourth book in Patrick Taylor's wonderful series set in 1964, but this one's very different, so you really don't need to read the others first. It's all about Mrs. "Kinky" Kincaid, housekeeper for the "Irish Country Doctor" in Ballybucklebo in County Down, Northern Ireland. As the book starts, Kinky is telling the local children "a story of faeries, and the banshee, and the Saint Stephen's Day Ghost" that actually happened when she was growing up on a farm in County Cork, in the south. It was 1922, and her mother, who had "the sight" (a psychic gift Kinky would inherit), warned Connor MacTaggert not to cut down a certain tree because "the faeries" lived in it. After he ignored her and cut it down anyway, oh, the things that happened to him. Then, his story gets wound up in Kinky's memories of how she met the young man who would become her husband. So, the ghost story becomes a love story.

I delight in the way Taylor puts words together: "Icicles like sharpened crystal pencils hung from the eaves of the church roof. They absorbed and magnified the rays and dropped gently as the sun warmed the ice." His descriptions are so pretty: "As if using sparkling hands just beneath its surface, the distant sea caught moonbeams, then held and polished them before releasing them to rise shimmering from the calm waters." This book has a bit of everything, and I'd recommend it to readers of any age who like a good story.

"The Pig Comes to Dinner" by Joseph Caldwell is also a ghost story, but it's funny. This is book two of a trilogy, following after "The Pig Did It." In the modern world, "hack novelist" Kitty McCloud and her new husband, Kieran, have just bought the Castle Kissane in County Kerry in southwest Ireland. Kitty writes "correction" classics (she takes well known works and changes the ending to suit herself). One day, her nephew gives her the pig that brought Kitty and her husband together in book one. Kitty doesn't want it, but she and the pig seem to be the only ones who see the castle's ghosts, two young lovers who were hanged (perhaps wrongly) because of a gunpowder plot. But as it turns out, Kieran sees them, too. And in fact Kitty thinks Kieran's fallen in love with the girl ghost, and she's not happy about it. Meanwhile, the arrogant Lord Shaftoe shows up, saying the castle is legally his and he's moving in. Not without a fight, Kitty decides.

Caldwell has a very dry sense of humor and also has some nice descriptive passages: "The slate roofs of the cottages were allowed to seem blue in the afternoon sun." Adult situations.

"The Yellow House" by Patricia Falvey has the elements of an Irish "Gone with the Wind": romance, war, family, adventure, the desire to return home, and a strong heroine who isn't always easy to like but who does what has to be done. In 1905, Eileen O'Neill is growing up in the family farmhouse in County Armagh in the province of Ulster. After her father is killed in a politically motivated skirmish and the family loses the house, badly damaged by fire, Eileen's life goal is set: regain ownership of her childhood home. Grown-up Eileen finds herself inappropriately attracted to the son of a wealthy Quaker family and is drawn into the cause of Irish patriot Michael Collins: "The warrior in me had found her war," says Eileen, who narrates her own story.

Some of the writing is so lovely that I wanted to read it slowly and take in all the rich description and enjoy "hearing" the Irish accents. It's a thoughtful, insightful book, as when Eileen reveals that "it is the first betrayal that hurts the most. It is the first betrayal that slays innocence and leaves a scar that is never forgotten." I was totally swept up in her life, in the Irish freedom movement and in the engaging story. (Psst: There are a couple of absolute surprises, when I actually gasped.)

"Galway Bay" by Mary Pat Kelly is an epic novel of two countries, set from 1839 to 1893 and based on the author's own family history. At age 17, fisherman's daughter Honora Keeley is about to enter a convent when handsome Michael Kelly steps out of the waters of Galway Bay in western Ireland. It's love at first sight; the two marry and become potato farmers. They have a pretty good life until the potato blight hits in 1845. Oh, man, what they endure is as terrifying as any horror novel: no food; neighbors dying from disease and starvation; landlords stealing whatever goods the tenants have. When people start emigrating to America, Honora wants to leave, too, but her husband says, "We can't all leave. ... A man has a right to live in his own country, to feed his children, to follow his faith." Yeah, not so much, it turns out. Finally, Honora and her family do emigrate, landing in New Orleans and experiencing adventure as they travel north on the Mississippi River. But they can't escape prejudice and poverty. Oh, and later there's a little thing we now call the American Civil War.

I found the book hard to read in the beginning, with too many unpronounceable Irish words (there's a glossary, but it isn't complete). But don't skip over the first part; it's important. And the reading got much better very quickly until I found that I was so involved in the story I couldn't put the book down. It's a complex, layered plot focusing on love, family and loyalty. I could visualize what was happening and relate to what Honora was going through. The politics are understandable, and a passion for justice comes ringing out of the pages. (Be warned: You'll learn to hate the wealthy landlords!) Unforgettable. Irish or not, if you like a good story you can wrap yourself up in, you must not miss this one.

Shannon In "Shannon," author Frank Delaney introduces us to Robert Shannon. A Catholic priest in America, Capt. Shannon was a chaplain with the U.S. Marines in the Great War, and by 1922 he is a "shattered," shell-shocked war hero. He has come to Ireland "in search of his lost best self," believing that going back to his family's roots along the Shannon River can somehow heal him. Toward this end, the bishop has "sent out scouts" to watch and care for him along the way. It's a road trip with eccentric characters in the midst of a revolution. I really like this author, who takes time to let the reader relax into the story and who often writes like a poet, as when he describes the river: "Her water meadows lured monks to her banks, able to see God in the sweetness of the stream."

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Here are links to other recent One for the Books columns. More links are available on my blog at http://blogs.dixcdn.com/shine_a_light/one-for-the-books/

Sex, Drugs, and Rock ’n’ Roll -- http://www.recordpub.com/news/article/4768003

Keep It Short! -- http://www.recordpub.com/news/article/4758011

The “Dome” Tome and “U” -- http://www.recordpub.com/news/article/4753011

Revisiting Jane Austen -- http://www.recordpub.com/news/article/4743712

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“One for the Books” appears the second and fourth Fridays of the month in the Record-Courier. Extra columns may appear on occasion, especially preceding Christmas and Hanukkah.