Ciara O’Dowd

Books for Christmas 2024

What do we need for Christmas? More books! Where will we put them? We’ll figure that out later. (You know who you are.) Or are you stuck for ideas on what to get other people? Or someone has asked you for a hint on what to buy for you?

So here are my recommendations for your wish list this Christmas, and I am doing you a favour because I’m keeping it to four. I have a personal interest in all of them – but I am of course completely unbiased. The first is On Land and Water, a truly beautiful production from Menma Books (available through their website or in bookstores) that combine the poetry of lighthouse keeper DJ O’Sullivan, and the exquisite wildlife images of renowned photographer Sheena Jolley.

I cannot overstate what a lovely production this is. DJ O’Sullivan spent his life in close communion with the birds and sea-creatures of Ireland’s remotest places. He writes with the insight of one who has honed his observations skills through long hours and days.

Sheena is one of Ireland’s top wildlife photographers. At the launch in Skull we were all transfixed by her relation of what that takes – being dropped off on an uninhabited island with your equipment and food, and making the boatman promise he will remember to come back for you in a couple of days. Then getting up before dawn and being ready for that golden light when the animals stir.

This is Sheena out to photograph some choughs

Besides the photographs, Sheena provides text that describes the creatures, their habitats and habits. This is the kind of book you will dip into over and over. And the same is true of my next choice – Cork by the artist Brian Lalor and the poet Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin.

I have written about this book before – four years ago, in a two-part post titled Cork, Part 1: Brian Lalor and Cork, Part 2: Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin. At that time, I was writing about a treasured gift given to me by my parents in the 70s – the amazing news is that 50 years later the book has been re-issued! It was launched (re-launched!), in a revised edition, in Waterstones in Cork at the end of October. Both Brian and Eiléan were there!

Take a look at the two posts above for a real flavour of what this book is all about. If you have ever lived in Cork, or even if you’ve visited, this is the book for you.

Wild Looking But Fine, by Ciara O’Dowd is my next recommendation. You might remember my post about Ciara and the chocolate box of letters between my mother, Lilian Robert Finlay, and other people associated with the Abbey Theatre. Eight years, and one child, later, Ciara’s book is finished and my brother and I attended the launch in Dublin. Ciara’s account of how difficult it was for women in 1930s Ireland to forge a professional and autonomous life is riveting. In her review of the book in Books Ireland, Jane Brennan asks, Why don’t we know more about their lives and achievements? Why, for example, is Ria Mooney not more widely remembered as the renaissance woman she was? Why had I never before heard of Aideen O’Connor (but am well acquainted with the name and reputation of her husband Arthur Shields)?

Shelagh Richards, Sarah Allgood and Ria Mooney in a 1937 film of Riders To The Sea by J M Synge

My final choice is a finalist in the An Post Book Awards. It’s 1588, The Spanish Armada and the 24 Ships Lost on Ireland’s Shores, by Michael Barry, published by Andalus Press.

The thing is, the story of the Spanish Armada was taught to us through an English lens. Prepare to have everything you thought you knew questioned and turned on its head. That’s because Michael has done his research in Spanish and Irish sources and, as is his wont, (see this post from eight years ago about his books) the book is profusely illustrated with lots of images sourced from unusual archives as well as his own fine photography.

The books are all available from their publishers or in all fine bookshops. You can think me in the New Year, once your loved ones have taken the hint and bought you one or all of the above.

Lilian

Lilian Roberts Finlay

Lilian Roberts Finlay, the novelist and short-story writer, was brilliant, complicated, fascinating, infuriating, mendacious and beautiful. She was also my mother. She wrote all her life although she didn’t start to publish until her 70s. I recommend her book of short stories, The Bona Fide Husband, and her first novel, Always in My Mind (after that, things went downhill). Old copies are still available through Amazon.

Old Abbey Theatre

The original Abbey Theatre , which was destroyed by fire in in 1951. The Abbey School of Acting was housed in the Peacock Theatre, an annex to the main theatre

Lilian died, aged 96, in 2011. Because her books have been out of print for a long time I was surprised when a Google search turned up a very recent reference to Always in My Mind. Intrigued, I logged on to a blog called Chasing Aideen, written by Ciara O’Dowd Conway. Ciara researches and writes (beautifully) about women in the early days of the Abbey Theatre, Ireland’s famous national theatre. She had been delighted to discover passages in the novel that described the narrator’s experiences as a student in the Abbey School of Acting, since the women she researches had been associated with that period (the 1930s) of the Abbey Theatre and the Abbey School as influential and pioneering actors, teachers and directors.

Riders To The Sea still

Shelagh Richards, Sarah Allgood and Ria Mooney in a 1937 film of Riders To The Sea by J M Synge

As part of the 1916 centenary celebrations the Abbey Theatre, last year, announced its 2016 year long programme. When the programme revealed how scandalously underrepresented women were as writers and directors, it created a furore. Almost overnight the WTF/Waking the Feminists movement came together to work for gender equality in Irish theatre. An exhilarating meeting in November galvanised a powerful new direction for Irish theatre women and they haven’t looked back since.

Dublin Opinion cover, 1916, De Valera, Irish women, constitution

This 1937 cover of Dublin Opinion, a satirical magazine, shows the ancient and powerful women of Ireland haunting De Valera’s dreams. While women had fought for Irish freedom and while the 1916 Declaration of Independence promised equality for all citizens, the Constitution assigned women to a ‘special role in the home’

For Ciara it was all too reminiscent of the challenges that had faced her ‘girls’ in the 30s and 40s. Was it really still going on, 80 years later? She wrote a piece on the WTF website – sorry, this is no longer available, but it helped me to understand her reaction and her decision to use her website as her own personal contribution to Waking the Feminists.

Lilian 1937

Lilian, about the time she studied at the Abbey School of Acting

Back to Lilian. When I read Ciara’s blog piece, I contacted her to say that we had some letters from my mother’s Abbey School of Acting days that might be of interest to her. Not only that, I was able to put her in touch with Ria Mooney’s niece, a friend of mine who lives in Vancouver. Ciara and Robert and I met over coffee  in Dalkey last week and yes, the letters in the old chocolate box turned out to be grist to the mill for Ciara.

Chocolate Box

She has written a couple of posts already about them, and there are more in the works. She writes in an expressive and entertaining style, so why don’t we let her take up the tale from here? I’ve put a link so you can leave Roaringwater Journal at the end of this post and head on over to Chasing Aideen. 

Ciara and letter

Ciara has her first read of a long letter from Ria Mooney to Lilian

But come back when you’re finished and tell me what you thought of it all. If you want to know more about Lilian, you can read obituaries here, and here.  Just don’t believe everything you read – my mother specialised in fiction, after all.

Lilian letters

The precious letters, written 80 years, now scanned and ready for study by Ciara

OK, off you go. Read this one first, and click on ‘next post’ at the end to continue (or click here).

And next week, I’ll get back to writing about West Cork…