IRISH SHADOWS, the
fifth of my Mist Na Mara contemporary novels, will be released this week, so here’s a
reminder of the beautiful part of Ireland where it is set.
Connemara, on the
west coast of Ireland, is a wild area of County Galway. Its name comes from Conmhacne Mara, meaning “descendants of
Con Mhac of the Sea”. It is a broad peninsula, surrounded on three sides by the
Atlantic Ocean, and stretching from Killary Harbour in the north to Galway Bay
in the south.
Connemara is renowned for its inspiring scenery, ranging
from the Twelve Bens to Roundstone Bog. The coastline is broken by many small
inlets and narrow peninsulas, and there are numerous small islands off the
coast.
The Twelve Bens
or Twelve Pins is a range of sharp peaked mountains, none of them higher than
about 3,400 feet, but still stark and dramatic. Hundreds of streams run down
the steep mountain sides, joining up with other streams to form large and small
loughs (pronounced like the
‘lochs’ in Scotland) in the
valley.
Clifden, on the west coast, is the ‘capital’ of Connemara. The town was founded
by John D’Arcy who inherited the estate at the beginning of the 19th century
(and built a castle overlooking Clifden Bay). At the time the area was
inhabited mainly by fishermen and farmers, until D’Arcy decided to establish a
town and also a road to Galway (now the N59).
By 1839 the town had grown to 185 dwellings, most of them
three-floored, two churches, two hotels, three schools, a police barracks,
courthouse, a gaol, a distillery and 23 pubs(!), and it had a population of about
1,000. It suffered during the Potato Famine in the 1840s and didn’t recover
until the end of the 19th century when a railway was built to link it to
Galway.
In the second half of the 20th century, Clifden has become a
thriving tourist destination. Its
population of about 2,500 is swelled by tourists, hikers, cyclists, and water
sports enthusiasts during the summer months. For the less energetic,
there is a variety of shops from sweater shops and boutiques to antiques and
art, and of course the tourist souvenir shops. Needless to say, there are also
plenty of pubs, some genuinely ‘old’ Irish and others more trendy. In many of
them, there is live music most evenings.
IRISH SHADOWS is
released on 27 June, and is available at a special price of 99c/99pence for a
limited time. Like the other books in the series, it is a stand-alone story,
with a ‘new’ hero and heroine.
Will Liam and Rose be
able to resolve all the shadows from the past in order to find a future
together?
After a heart-breaking experience, Rose Finlay has vowed
never to give another man a chance to hurt her – until Liam McKenna arrives at
Mist Na Mara Arts Centre to organise an anniversary celebration event. Liam has
his own reasons for not wanting to embark on a new relationship, and both fight
the mutual magnetic attraction.
Shocks await them when Liam meets the boy his sister gave up
for adoption twenty years earlier, and Rose’s ‘ex’ makes contact with her
thirteen-year-old son. Rose also discovers a betrayal which has divided her
family since the Irish Civil War in the 1920s.
Link to all major e-book distributors: http://www.tirgearrpublishing.com/authors/Martin_Paula/irish-shadows.htm
