A month ago – it’s a cliche, but it truly seems like yesterday – I found myself reading from one of my novels by the light of candles and a fragrant peat fire in the village of Cloghane (population, about three-hundred) on Ireland’s Dingle Peninsula.
Hayes-McCoy
Also reading that night was Felicity Hayes-McCoy, who was celebrating the September release in the U.S. and Canada of her Summer in the Garden Cafe (Harper Perennial). It’s the second in her “Finfarren” series featuring a librarian, and set on a fictional peninsula on Ireland’s West Coast. Her books quickly went into the TBR pile; I especially liked what she had to say about focusing on the too-often unsung role of women in Ireland (OK, in every country, but that night we were focusing on Ireland), which she addresses in her memoir, A Woven Silence.
Hayes-McCoy and I were at a ceilidh, an evening of song and storytelling and reading and even a couple of bawdy jokes from family friend Mary O’Morain. Maybe someday the magic of those memories will wear off, but I doubt it.
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