A guest post by Erin Hart.
People often ask why I chose Ireland as a
setting, and I
always say it’s the other way ‘round—I’m fairly certain that
Ireland chose me.
For some reason, I've been drawn to that little island more than
any other spot
in the world ever since I was a child. There's just something
about the deeply
complex and contradictory nature of the place, all those layers
of history one
on top of the other—that lends a particular resonance to the
kinds of stories I
feel compelled to tell. I’m attracted to the otherworldly
quality that emanates
from certain spots in Ireland, and one of my aims in writing
stories set there
is to share some of those wonderful hidden places.
I’m fortunate to have some really good
connections. My
husband is an Irishman and a traditional musician; his name is
Paddy O’Brien
(not making that up!) and he plays the button accordion.
Whenever we travel in
Ireland, we visit musician friends and go to informal sessions
where tunes and
songs are traded. Those places aren’t exactly top secret, but
they’re usually
off the beaten path. You have to know where to go, or you risk
straying into a
bar where a DJ is blasting ordinary pop music, or even
American-style country,
also very popular in Ireland. If you’re looking for traditional
music, it helps
to know someone who knows where to find it. Paddy and I have
gone into bars out
the West, in Clare and Connemara where the locals are mad for
set dancing, and
have their own signature sets (danced in a square, with eight
people and a bit
of fancy footwork), that the people in that particular locality
have been doing
for a hundred years or more. All right, it does help if you
bring along a
well-known, world-class musician to play for them, but still…
When I take groups to Ireland, which I’ve
been doing for the
past three years, we visit many of the locations from my
stories. There’s a lot
of traditional music in my novels, because the main characters,
Cormac Maguire
and Nora Gavin, are both musicians. (He plays the wooden flute
and she’s a
traditional singer, as I am.) In the beginning the choice to
make the
characters musicians seemed like a handy way to give them a
little extra
dimension, but it also seemed pretty authentic, since many of
our musician
friends are also schoolteachers and journalists doctors,
policemen, and
scientists in real life. So many people in Ireland play
traditional music that
it seemed quite natural to have characters who’d bring along
instruments when
they traveled to an excavation site, just in case there might be
a good local
session nearby. As time went on, the music also became a way to
flesh out the stories,
a chance to slip plenty of history and culture into the mix, and
to give the
characters a true grounding and connection to the places they
come from.
So when I bring people to Ireland, we always
try to hit some
music or singing sessions, like An Góilín
– the traditional singer's club that meets at the Teachers’ Club
on Parnell
Square in Dublin, or instrumental session at The Cobblestone in
Smithfield or
Hughes’s pub in Chancery Street. Old friends are regular
performers at all
those venues. If you’ve never been to one, a traditional session
is a feast of
music—jigs, reels, hornpipes, a whirl of notes that will leave
you exhilarated
and sated by the end of the night—even if you’re not drinking
porter.
I’m also fascinated by traditional culture,
folklore, and
folkways. My stories often involve ancient rituals from
thousands of years ago,
still practiced today in
Ireland—and there are many: bonfires set alight on the tops of
hills at certain
times of the year, crosses woven of rushes, trees adorned with
rags and ribbons
beside holy wells, and otherworldly ringforts said to be
inhabited by the
little people.
My husband used
to
work in the industrial peat bogs of the Midlands, so we often
cross these dark
bogs, strange places where all surface vegetation cut away,
where blackened
peat from just after the last Ice Age still remains
underfoot—not quite the
picture of green Ireland that so many hold in their
imaginations. I asked Paddy
to take me to the place where he’d worked, since I was writing
about a similar
workshop in LAKE OF SORROWS. We parked the car, and as we
approached the large
machine shed, I asked, “Will anyone here remember you?” He said,
“You must be
jokin’. I haven’t been here since 1969.” But as we got closer, a
man in a brown
canvas coat stepped out of the doorway, looked us up and down
once, and said,
“O’Brien—what do you want?” The exploitation of the bogs might
be bad for the
environment, but in that part of the country, it was the only
good job to be
had. Everyone Paddy had worked with—way back in 1969—was still
working there.
But the most fascinating thing about the
industrial bogs is
that they’re also the spots where much of Ireland’s archaeology
is going on
these days, and where artifacts and bog bodies still turn up
with an almost
alarming regularity. At
the National
Museum in Dublin, we visit an exhibition called “Kingship and
Sacrifice,” which
features the remains of several bog people, thought to be human
sacrifices
during the Iron Age. One of these men was discovered by my
husband’s cousin,
Kevin Barry, while he was clearing a drain in a bog being
developed for
gardening peat moss. If this really is a small world, there’s no
place smaller
than Ireland. Everyone is linked to everyone else somehow, and
if you need to
get in to see the state pathologist or a member of the murder
squad, you’ve
nothing to do only ask your friends, and someone will come up
with a
connection. At least, that's what happened to me.
In researching THE BOOK OF KILLOWEN
(Scribner, March 5), I visited
the bog where the Faddan More Psalter, a 9th-century book of
Psalms, was
discovered, buried in a bog. My aunt and I went to interview Ned
Kelly, an
archaeologist and Keeper of Antiquities at the National Museum
of Ireland in
Dublin. And we visited many old ruined chapels and monasteries,
and exhibits
featuring some of the few existing manuscripts left from the
days of the ancient
scribes. We toured a friend’s organic farm, and visited with a
local
cheesemaker and his goats to get the flavor of the locality
where this story is
set.
Of course on the HAUNTED GROUND tours, we
also visit regular
stops like museums and woolen shops and the Guinness brewery
(practically
required by law!) We also go to an old distillery, tiny pubs out
the West, and
we usually stop at the most haunted castle in Ireland where the
current human
inhabitant tells stories and plays a few tunes on the whistle.
We venture down
narrow, hedge-lined roads to wild boglands, rocky coastlines,
hidden streams,
and coral beaches that resemble ground-up bones; we clamber around ruined
monasteries and
ancient burial places. It’s easy to miss these hidden places,
and that’s why I
enjoy sharing them so much, these spots where you can feel the
connection to
the past, where you can almost hear strains of ancient music in
the wind that
goes through you, right down to the bones.
Erin Hart writes archaeological crime novels set in the mysterious boglands of Ireland. Before a wayward detour into crime fiction, she worked as an arts administrator, editor, copywriter, journalist and theater critic. Her debut novel, HAUNTED GROUND (Scribner, 2003) won the Friends of American Writers award and Romantic Times' Best First Mystery, was shortlisted for Anthony and Agatha awards, and was named by Book-Of-The-Month Club and Booklist as one of the best crime novels of 2003. LAKE OF SORROWS (Scribner, 2004) was shortlisted for a Minnesota Book Award, and FALSE MERMAID (Scribner, 2010) was named by Booklist as one of the Top Ten Crime Novels of 2010. Her latest, THE BOOK OF KILLOWEN, is being published by Scribner on March 5, 2013. Erin lives in Minnesota with her husband, Irish button accordion player Paddy O’Brien, with whom she frequently travels to Ireland, to carry out essential research in bogs and cow pastures and castles and pubs.
Please drop by Stuff and Nonsense today for a review of THE BOOK OF KILLOWEN, to be released tomorrow.
Erin Hart writes archaeological crime novels set in the mysterious boglands of Ireland. Before a wayward detour into crime fiction, she worked as an arts administrator, editor, copywriter, journalist and theater critic. Her debut novel, HAUNTED GROUND (Scribner, 2003) won the Friends of American Writers award and Romantic Times' Best First Mystery, was shortlisted for Anthony and Agatha awards, and was named by Book-Of-The-Month Club and Booklist as one of the best crime novels of 2003. LAKE OF SORROWS (Scribner, 2004) was shortlisted for a Minnesota Book Award, and FALSE MERMAID (Scribner, 2010) was named by Booklist as one of the Top Ten Crime Novels of 2010. Her latest, THE BOOK OF KILLOWEN, is being published by Scribner on March 5, 2013. Erin lives in Minnesota with her husband, Irish button accordion player Paddy O’Brien, with whom she frequently travels to Ireland, to carry out essential research in bogs and cow pastures and castles and pubs.
Please drop by Stuff and Nonsense today for a review of THE BOOK OF KILLOWEN, to be released tomorrow.
Thanks for taking us on a virtual trip to Ireland today. I envy your research travels. :)
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for guesting today, Erin.
ReplyDeleteI must find a way to do research overseas.
Ahhh… that essential research. I need to remember that and try and figure out how to use it.
ReplyDeleteBy the end of your post, I heard a distinctly Irish lilt while I read your words. Guess it was more Minnesota than Ireland though. ;-)
Continued success, Erin!
Fascinating! I was in Ireland many years ago and it's time I went back! Interesting post, and I'll be looking for your books, Erin! Thanks for dropping by to post at CFC.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on the release of your book. Ah, Ireland! Jonathan Swift, Oscar Wilde, James Joyce - and Guinness Draft.
ReplyDeleteLovely - a post of rainbows.
Best of luck with your book, Erin. I enjoyed your post. Ireland is on my list of places to visit. As a Brit, it's appalling I haven't yet been.
ReplyDelete