Writings

Dolores and Other Sorrows

I started this collection of short stories around 2008. Initially the stories were in Spanish, but I translated them into English hoping I would find a more comfortable voice. I reworked them together with the incredible Mary Kennelly and she energised me enough to want to add some more stories.

The cover is a self-portrait by the amazing Marta Muñoz Cuesta.

Shortlisted for the Eyelands Book Awards

Longlisted for the Page Turner Awards

Into the Grey

The poems in this book tell the story of Mary Kennelly as she accompanies her uncles, Fr. John and Brendan, down the path of dementia.

While the collection is at times agonisingly sad, at its core it is filled with love. The poet does not shy away from the hardship of loving someone with dementia, but moments of decline are balanced with moments of devotion and, for all its tragedy, it is a journey filled with tenderness.

All profits from ‘Into the Grey’ will be shared by Our Lady of Fatima Home, Tralee, Co. Kerry and Aras Mhuire Nursing Home, Listowel, Co Kerry. 

Seven Steps to Birth a Crone

 ‘Seven Steps to Birth a Crone’ is a strikingly beautiful collaborative work, seeped in the colours and sounds of  Ireland, which attempts to answer the question that plague most of us  at some stage; ‘how do I recast my self given times’s shifting sands?

The title itself was a point of discussion and at times even dissent. Why refer to themselves as Crones? That’s the name given to the third age of womanhood in Celtic mythology. Is that the only choice for woman? Are our choices limited to being either youthful and fertile or wizzened and no longer of use? The male equivalent for an aged man is a hermit, with implications of wisdom and voluntary withdrawal. Why is it that many terms referring to women are so easily made into something negative?

‘Seven Steps to Birth a Crone’ is a shared journey, using image and words, through acknowledgement of change, the use of creativity and imagination to seek out acceptance, the rejection of negative stereotypes. It is a  determination to embrace one’s dance even when the steps have changed.