Tag Archives: Novel

Ciaran O’Driscoll has pleasant memories of time he spent in County Clare from visiting his parents at their home in Ballynacally, to his love of the concertina that brought him west from London to the Willie Clancy Summer School, where he attended the concertina weekend on many an occasion. It is his love of words and storytelling, and his interest in passing on the knowledge he has amassed to a younger generation, that is the mark of the man. “My mother and father lived in Ballynacally for about 20 years. My father thought Clare was the place to go because of the music,” he said. “He played an accordion but wasn’t very good at it but he’d practise every night. He would practise into one or two o’clock in the morning and used to drive my poor mother mad. And when I was in London I used to go over for the Willie Clancy Week with a gang of people …

“I’M over the moon,” exclaims Ennis television presenter and journalist Zainab Boladale, speaking about the release of her debut Young Adult novel ‘Braids Take A Day’. “I’ve always wanted to write a book, to be an author was always something that had always been a dream of mine,” adds the 27-year-old Nationwide presenter. The coming-of-age novel centres on 17-year-old Abidemi, who can’t wait for summer, her last one at home in Ennistymon before she heads off to college. She’s ready to say goodbye to school, spend some time learning new braids and hairstyles – and see where things go with her friend Jack. But when she meets an intriguing woman from Nigeria, secrets start to unravel. Suddenly, life and family are changing and she needs to think hard about who she wants to be. Zainab, who was born in Nigeria and moved to Ennis aged four, explains the novel evolved from an initial idea for a small chapter she had …

BARRING further public health crises, the Ennis Book Club Festival will have in-person events on the first weekend in March. One of these will be entitled Motherhood, Destiny and Choices: Irish and American debuts asking tough questions, to be held at St Columba’s Church on the afternoon of March 5. Among the speakers will be Galway based Edel Coffey, whose first novel Breaking Point, has just come out. It tells the story of Susannah, a working mother, pulled in different directions each day, working as a doctor, researcher and professor as well as being a wife and mother. One frantic morning, with a disrupted routine and a work emergency, she leaves her young daughter in the car on a hot New York day. When she realises her mistake, it is already too late. Another woman Adelaide is a reporter covering a subsequent negligence trial, and for her the story is a familiar one, stirring up ghosts from her own long-buried …

A FASCINATING novel on the fortunes of an Irish man who fought in World War One has just been published by a man with strong East Clare revolutionary roots. Dubliner Brendan Lynch is the son of a Scariff native and spent many happy summers in the Banner County. Brendan Lynch is the author of nine books to-date, and The Old Gunner and his Medals is his first novel, which he has published at the age of 80. A former racing cyclist and driver, railway clerk and journalist, Brendan was imprisoned in the 1960 for his activities with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). His books include City of Writers, inspired by his acquaintance with Brendan Behan and JP Dunleavy. Author Colum McCann said of the book that that it showed “the who, what, where, when, how and why of a place that is built on the intricacies of language”. Brendan’s interest in history is probably inspired in part by his …