I feel like I should re-introduce myself after a month-long absence but friends, I was tired.
I was tired of typing, tired of writing, tired of reading, tired of scrolling TikTok aimlessly.
I know several people felt that in December so I want you to know that I see you and I feel you.
There were a few glimmers, I enjoyed the cold weather as I liked how the trees glistened, how my feet glided on the pavements and how I felt every beat of the music I was listening to.
I am also rehearsing for a play right now so the time I previously spent thinking about the newsletter has been devoted to thinking about being a woman living in destitute in 1930s Spain.
(Come see Blood Wedding if you find yourself in Fermanagh in a fortnight)
The tiredness lasted well into January when a bad cold tried to finish me off but now I am shaking it off.
I haven’t done a post of favourites or recently read books on the newsletter in a while so thought it would be nice to catch up on some of what has occupied the space between my two hands over the last wee while.
There was a LOT of Irish writing, so I am going to focus the newsletter on that and then I will be able to have some leftovers to revisit.
I enjoyed ‘Trespasses’ by Louise Kennedy. This book captures a period from before I was born but a time that shapes my life every single day.
This novel has a powerful impact. The sucker punch is delivered in the last section of the novel and it did shock me. It echoed the sudden feeling many people who live on this turf felt when they suddenly lost someone out of the blue.
I thought the author captured something special in the book, all the strange coincidences that can occur around tragedy in this country and further stressed that we are all one village, connected, yet disconnected.
The same theme of one small village was further echoed in Martin Doyle’s ‘Dirty Linen’ which was sublime and certainly is one of the best pieces of journalism and writing I have read concerning The Troubles in quite some time. Doyle takes the violence that occurred and dissects it down to a Parish at the heart of the ‘murder triangle’.
I spent ages trying to read this book as often the stories were too painful and so vividly described that it made for difficult reading.
Making my way to rural Ireland, I read John McGahern’s ‘That They May Face The Rising Sun’ and it was a pure tonic.
We all know what a lot of people outside the Border region think of us including a former Irish Government minister who made these remarks back in 2022.
McGahern is the master of portraying rural Border life, no one writes about this area or even refers to this area with such tenderness.
The novel is a gem because it is a book where nothing happens, but everything happens. It mirrors life in that way, sometimes when nothing happens in our lives we realise that all around us everything happens.
It portrays Ireland I know, not a city but a small farming community where people pull together.
Earlier this week, I finished the sublime ‘Close to Home’ by Michael Magee. I had heard a lot of hype about it and I do often try to avoid books that are overhyped but I picked it up one day after someone I trusted raved about it.
Reader, I cried.
I cried buckets, I cried for Sean, I cried for Anthony, and I cried for their mother.
I think I cried for everyone.
It was the no-holds-barred way it portrayed Belfast, there was no glitz and glam. This was a very real novel, a warts-and-all novel.
It explores the hell that comes with the passing down of transgenerational trauma, and what happens when a community and an entire class are abandoned by the powers that be.
It is brave and honest and paints a damning picture of how the promised transformation of Belfast as a city seems as if it was only ever reserved for some quarters.
In non-fiction, I read Stephen Walker’s expertly crafted ‘John Hume: The Persuader’. A giant of a book examining a giant of a man. It is based on interviews with Hume and those who knew him and is a great testament to his work.
I also tucked into Aoife Moore’s ‘Inside Sinn Féin’, a good pacy read but perhaps serves more as a history of the party and how they got to where they are as opposed to an inside track.
Moore was prevented from interviewing elected reps and had minimal access to Sinn Féin something she explains early on but did speak to unnamed sources who paint a most interesting picture. Well written and I hope in time more access will be granted and the idea of what goes on inside can be revisited.
One of my favourite books of 2023 was ‘Poor’ by Katriona O’Sullivan.
It covers a wide range of issues including drug and alcohol addiction, what it means to be the child of addicts (and how authority treats you), neglect, child abuse, teenage pregnancy, and education.
What it is most powerful at doing is holding a mirror up to society and how it treats people who are viewed as “less than”.
It made me angry, for Katriona, her family, her siblings, her parents and all of those whom a system lets down.
The book pays tribute to those who rise above it while also acknowledging that not many do.
In many ways, it shows the redemptive power of education, and how for Katriona (now Dr. O’Sullivan), education was the tool she used to a better life for herself and her family.
It was a hard read, the detail is graphic and upsetting for readers but ultimately the events portrayed are more upsetting for the people who lived through them.
I know it will not be for everyone but I found that this book challenged and changed how I see society. I hope it does the same for you too.
To round it off, I read the excellent ‘Prophet Song’ by Paul Lynch
I loved this novel mostly as I liked the narrative style, it was pacey and urgent and mirrored the mindset of the main character Eilish.
Many have made comparisons to recent news events in Dublin and how they relate to the novel but I do think this novel is timeless and like all good dystopian novels acts as a warning.
The writing style and language use is very Beckettian which I enjoyed and was not expecting!
Speaking of the main man, I read a French-to-Hiberno-English translation of ‘Yell, Sam, If You Still Can’ by Maylis Besserie (trans: Clíona Ní Ríordáin).
Anyone familiar with Beckett’s work will love the references, it was a bit much at the start but it settled down and portrayed a very humanised Beckett, something that is hard to do as many see him as an aloof figure.
It imagines his last days and gives a more intimate look at a private and reserved figure.
If all of this sounds a bit heavy for you, allow me to offer up ‘The Rachel Incident’ by Caroline O’Donoghue. It is a page-turner which goes in unexpected directions. It is exactly the kind of book that will dust off some cobwebs.
It's a book about being young and independent for the first time. It has that feeling of when your shit student house was a palace to you and your housemates.
Where everything was in sync and you spoke in a secret language of dishwashing, cooking and laying in bed together to talk about nothing but also talk about everything.
If you've ever spent any time in an arts department of a university (specifically an English department) you need this.
Outside of reading and watching rubbish TV, I also watched some good TV.
I watched Aaron Sorkin’s ‘The Newsroom’, and I was hooked by this opening speech, it is very idealistic and is filled with Sorkin goodness.
The latter seasons aren’t as good but season one is excellent.
It is over 11 years old and I would be very interested to hear how Sorkin would write this speech now.
Like everyone else, I was hooked on The Traitors and my new obsession is Diane. What a woman.
I hope she gets gifted crates of fizzy rosé because she deserves it.
Wow - tired you may be but what a feast of reading!
I want to read them all x