you are not. Unfortunately one week too late for the release of my new Molly Murphy novel,
which was published last Tuesday. It’s called Vanished in the Crowd and Clare will be writing a guest post about it tomorrow.
But it’s a day for sharing fond Irish memories. I have no Irish ancestry (but being Welsh means fellow Celt) but John has an Irish grandfather and a distinguished Irish ancestry. His great grandfather was one of those selected to be sent to the English parliament to plead for Irish emancipation. His great great grandfather owned the Belfast newspaper and his Quin ancestors are the junior branch of the Earls of Dunraven.
John and I spent a perfect three weeks driving all around Ireland a few years ago. Three weeks with only one day of rain. That’s a miracle in itself. We had wonderful fresh food, Irish music in pubs and glorious scenery. My memories: the friendliness of the Irish people. If you stopped to ask for directions it would go something like this: “Well, you turn right at the corner and on the next street you’ll pass a lovely little bakery. You should try their soda bread, only you need to get there before eleven or they'll sell out, and past that is the wool shop and she has some home spun wool there you won’t find anywhere else, and then the fish monger…etc until “and at the next corner you turn left.” It takes half an hour or more.
My favorite direction came when we stayed at a B and B in Tralee. The owner said if we’d a mind for a lovely hike over a waterfall he’d tell us how to get there. He said you drive along the side of the loch and you’ll come to this lovely hotel with a perfect view. Right out into the water, it is. And if you want dinner there at sunset they have a great restaurant. Now, if you get to that hotel, you’ve gone too far.”
You have to love the Irish
As for St. Patrick’s Day memories: My strangest was that my publisher brought me to New York to do promotion for Molly on St. Patrick’s Day. Royal treatment: limo to drive me around Manhattan to bookstores. Question: where does a limo park while I go in to NY bookstores? And as for the event in the evening? One of the bookstore owners said “I’m sorry but we don’t open on St Patrick’s Day. Too many drunken men in the streets.”
I don't think there were many drunken Irishmen who said, "You know what, Paddy, let's go to a bookstore and hear Rhys Bowen!" Not one of my better appearances.
! So dear Reds and Readers, do you have any fond Irish memories? Or St Patrick’s Day memories?
Jenn, you’ve set books in Ireland. Tell all…
Happy St. Patrick's Day . . . .
ReplyDeleteAll my ancestors were English and Scots, dull WASPS to the core. However my husband's father, the only child of an unhappy Austrian/Finnish marriage, married into my husband's mother's huge clan of Boston Murphys. He also was born on this day in 1929 — so every year his birthday was a big celebration of Irishness. He was a very troubled man (we recognized Jack Nicholson's misanthrope in AS GOOD AS IT GETS) but St. Patrick's Day seemed to please him. He's been gone for sixteen years but today I will cook corned beef and cabbage and we'll raise a glass. (Selden)
ReplyDeletep.s. Congratulations, Rhys, on your new Molly Murphy!
DeleteTwo memories:
ReplyDeleteWhen my daughters were in high school they were in an all-girls fife and drum corps which played every year at the St. Patrick's Day parade in South Boston; every parent was on chaperone duty for this event in an (often failed) attempt to stop the drunks from trying to steal the girls' hats.
During my college years, I was fleet of foot. One St. Patrick's Day, I managed to get the very first glass of green beer from THREE different bars! A record that may still stand.
Well, I'm half Flaherty, so plenty of Irish here! I've never been, but I'm on the verge of booking a trip there in the fall. I have a St. Patrick's Day book, Four Leaf Cleaver (title thanks to Grace Koshida), and it includes a yummy recipe for steak and stout stew which I made recently.
ReplyDeleteCongrats on the new Molly, Rhys - I must go pick up my copy.
Edith, I immediately went searching for your book in my Kindle and found the recipe. I will need some Irish Stout.
DeleteThe closest to being Irish I can get is wearing the socks with pictures of sheep on them my friend brought me from her trip there several years ago. Would love to go one day myself. For now, I settle for reading books which are set there.
ReplyDelete