A-Z Blogging Challenge - S is for Skelleen

 Skelleen is a village in Connemara, County Galway. Well, no, actually, it isn’t – because I invented it, originally for my Irish Intrigue story, although it also had a few mentions in Irish Secrets and Irish Shadows.

However, it wasn’t a complete invention. In fact, it’s an amalgam of a couple of Irish villages. Although I knew where I wanted Skelleen to be situated, I needed it to be somewhat larger than the village in that position which has a population of only about 200. So I ‘combined’ it with another larger village (actually in County Mayo).

The advantage of doing this, of course, is that you can ‘move’ buildings around to suit your story! By the time I finished Irish Intrigue, I had a clear picture in my mind of ‘my’ village, even though it was drawn from two different sources. The pub (Connolly’s) in my story came from the Galway village, the church from the other. The ‘Now and Forever’ house in the story was a figment of my own imagination – but the idea came from The Quiet Man cottage in the Mayo village, where we saw Maureen O’Hara’s signature in the guest book (and if you’ve read Irish Intrigue, you’ll understand the significance of that!).

Blending factual places with your own imagination can be useful because you have carte blanche to add/delete whatever you wish. For instance, I added a children’s playground at one end of the village, and the children’s school wasn’t anything like the schools in either of the villages. But there was a bridge spanning the point where a small river reaches the head of the lough, which I called Skelleen Lough.

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A-Z Blogging Challenge - M is for Mist Na Mara

Mist Na Mara house is a product of my imagination. It was the house Jenna and Guy jointly inherited in Irish Inheritance, and from the moment I started the novel, I could see it in my mind.

Here’s the heroine’s first view of the front of the house:

Built of grey stone, Mist Na Mara House had a central doorway, flanked on both sides by long sash windows and, at each end of the frontage, large square bay windows on the ground and upper floors.

I knew roughly where the house was situated (near Clifden in the west of Ireland) but had to ignore the fact that this area only has a few isolated stone cottages, and some modern white bungalows. This was where I wanted my house to be, so I put it there anyway!

And this was the view from the front of the house:

Jenna turned and let her eyes take in the panoramic view. Not only did they overlook the narrow bay and the low green hills on the far shore, but they were high enough to see another stretch of water beyond and some larger hills. On their left were the peaks of the Twelve Bens, and to their right, broken by a few rocky islets, was the vast grey expanse of the Atlantic Ocean.

The inside of the house was sharply focused in my mind, too:

Once inside, she stared around, hardly able to take in the elegance of the large hallway with oak wainscoting and polished parquet floor. In the centre stood a rosewood pedestal table on an ornately carved column, and a crystal chandelier sparkled in the sun’s rays through the arched fanlight above the door. On each side of the hallway were two solid oak doors, much broader than modern doorways. Ahead of them, a wide wooden staircase curved upwards, with a brass handrail and wrought iron balusters, and a corridor at the side of the stairs led to the back of the house.

And, of course, there was the bedroom which had been locked for over 70 years, and my hero and heroine were the first to see it, but I won’t post any spoilers here about that!

Originally I called the house Sea Mist House – but then  discovered there was a hotel with that name in Clifden. One of my friends in Dublin (thank you, Ellen Brickley!) came to my rescue, with the half-English, half Irish name of Mist Na Mara – meaning ‘mist of the sea’.

The house has played a part in all my Irish novels, as it became an arts and drama/dance centre, and gained a large extension, a restored cottage, and also a barn conversion. I am now so familiar with the place, I find it hard sometimes to remember it is not actually a ‘real’ place.

Imagination is definitely a wonderful thing! And one comment by a reviewer was especially pleasing: The description of the old house, Mist Na Mara, was excellent. I walked around the house in my head, I could picture the bedrooms, the kitchen, and even the drive up to it.

It’s great when something you have invented captures someone else’s imagination!

By the way, I’ve never (yet) found a photo of a house that matches my vision of Mist Na Mara, so maybe it really is a ‘one-off’!

All my books are available from 

Amazon  or from Tirgearr Publishing 

Clifden, the 'capital' of Connemara

My four Irish novels are soon to be republished (with brand new covers!) so here is an introduction to the small town of Clifden, which provides the setting for them all.

 Clifden (An Clochán in Irish, meaning stepping stones) is situated on the west coast of Ireland, between the Atlantic Ocean and the ‘Twelve Bens’ of Connemara.

It 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).

John D'Arcy's castle (now in ruins)
overlooking Clifden Bay

Originally it had three streets, forming a triangle - Main Street, Market Street and Bridge Street, with Main and Market meeting at the market square, and Bridge Street linking the other ends of those two streets.

Looking up Market Street from the open area where the
market used to take place

Looking down Market Street toward the market place
and Christ Church (Church of Ireland)

Main Street and St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church

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.

The town from the harbour

In the second half of the 20th century, Clifden became a popular centre for many different outdoor pursuits – hiking, cycling, sailing, fishing, horse-riding and golf. 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.

It's definitely one of my favourite Irish towns! Friendly people, interesting shops, excellent food, great craic - and even better when the rain stops and the sun comes out! 

Next week I’ll tell you more about Clifden’s history and its surroundings.

'Irish Inheritance' - Clifden

My next novel, ‘Irish Inheritance’, (to be published shortly) is set mainly in Ireland, as its title suggests, so for the next few weeks, I’ll introduce you to some of the places that feature in the novel.

 

To start with: Clifden

 

Clifden is a small town on the coast of County Galway in the west of Ireland. The Irish name, An Clochán, means "stepping stones”, and it’s sometimes called the "the Capital of Connemara", which I’ll tell you more about in a later post. Clifden is situated on the Owenglen River where it flows into Clifden Bay and is a popular tourist destination for those touring Connemara.

The town was founded in the 19th century by John D’Arcy, who lived in Clifden Castle (now a ruin). Until then the area was inhabited mainly by farmers and fishermen. D’Arcy organised the construction of a quay, and also a road to Galway City, and the town began to grow. By 1839, when D’Arcy died, it had become a town of 185 dwellings, two churches, two hotels, three schools, a courthouse and jail, a distillery – and 23 pubs!

Its prosperity ended when the Great Famine started in 1845. By 1848, nearly all the population was on government relief, landlords went bankrupt, and many people emigrated to America. It was another fifty years before Clifden started to grow again, when a railway was built in 1895.

Now it has become a popular tourist destination, offering spectacular scenery on its doorstep, a wide variety of outdoor activities, and 5000 years of history. It is also claiming the title of ‘Gourmet Capital of the West’, with fine-dining restaurants and hotels, and of course many pubs, ranging from traditional to trendy.

Two events brought Clifden into the world spotlights in the early 19th century. In 1909 Marconi set up the first transatlantic wireless telegraphy station about four miles south of the town and eventually over 400 people were employed there.

The Alcock and Brown Memorial, near Clifden

In 1919, Derrygimla Bog, near to the wireless station, saw the end of the very first transatlantic flight when Alcock and Brown landed their Vickers Vimy airplane there after their 16 hours flight from St. John’s, Newfoundland. They thought they were landing on a green field, but this turned out to be a bog, and their plane nosedived into the marshy ground. Fortunately neither man was injured.

 

Weekend Writing Warriors

In honour of St Patrick’s Day, my eight sentences today are the start of my current ‘work in progress’, provisionally titled ‘Irish Inheritance.’

 

“A house in Ireland?” Jenna stared over the mahogany desk at the lawyer. “Someone I’ve never heard of has left me a house in Ireland?”

 

The grey-haired man raised his head, and looked at her over his rimless spectacles. “A half share of the house, Ms. Sutton, along with a half share of what, at current exchange rates, amounts to approximately fifty thousand pounds.”

 

Jenna shook her head and swiped some strands of her hair back behind her ear. Any minute now someone was going to leap out from under the desk and cry ‘April Fool’. Except this was May, not April, and surely it was unethical for Mr. Haslam, of Hargreaves, Haslam, and Hesketh, to play practical jokes on anyone.

 

And here is the beautiful part of Ireland which is the setting for the story – Connemara on the west coast.

 

 

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