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Mother Ireland
An autobiographical tapestry; recollections of an Irish childhood linked to an account of a journey there today, interwoven with fragments of Irish mythology, history and hearsay. All the essential poetry, beauty, strangeness, simplicities, superstitions and fears of rural Ireland are evoked by Edna O'Brien's lyrical and personal style and by Fergus Bourke's magnificent photographs. 19.5mm x 12.5mm x .5mm.
89 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1976
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About the author
Edna O'Brien
116 books1,396 followersEdna O’Brien was an award-winning Irish author of novels, plays, and short stories. She has been hailed as one of the greatest chroniclers of the female experience in the twentieth century. She was the 2011 recipient of the Frank O’Connor Prize, awarded for her short story collection Saints and Sinners. She also received, among other honors, the Irish PEN Award for Literature, the Ulysses Medal from University College Dublin, and a lifetime achievement award from the Irish Literary Academy. Her 1960 debut novel, The Country Girls, was banned in her native Ireland for its groundbreaking depictions of female sexuality. Notable works also include August Is a Wicked Month (1965), A Pagan Place (1970), Lantern Slides (1990), and The Light of Evening (2006). O’Brien lived in London until her death.
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March 28, 2018
This slim volume combines travel writing, history and memoir, with plentiful black and white photographs (by Fergus Bourke) along the way. Often, even where O’Brien is clearly drawing on autobiographical material, she resists saying “I”, instead opting for “one,” “you,” or “we.” I think she was aiming at the universalities of the Irish experience, but instead it ends up coming off as generic. That and a long opening chapter on Ireland’s history set me to skimming. (Also, the book is maddeningly underpunctuated, and the photos in particular seem very dated.) By far my favorite of the seven essays was the last, “Escape to England.” In just three pages, she explains what it’s like to start a new life in another country and how the experience allowed her to appreciate home all the more. Should I try O’Brien’s fiction?
Favorite lines:
“Irish people do not like to be contradicted. Foiled again and again[,] they have in them a rage that comes at you unawares like a briar jutting out of a hedge.”
“You are Irish[,] you say lightly, and allocated to you are the tendencies to be wild, wanton, drunk, superstitious, unreliable, backward, toadying and prone to fits, whereas you know that in fact a whole entourage of ghosts resides in you, ghosts with whom the inner rapport is as frequent, as perplexing, as defiant as with any of the living.”
Favorite lines:
“Irish people do not like to be contradicted. Foiled again and again[,] they have in them a rage that comes at you unawares like a briar jutting out of a hedge.”
“You are Irish[,] you say lightly, and allocated to you are the tendencies to be wild, wanton, drunk, superstitious, unreliable, backward, toadying and prone to fits, whereas you know that in fact a whole entourage of ghosts resides in you, ghosts with whom the inner rapport is as frequent, as perplexing, as defiant as with any of the living.”
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February 25, 2021Irlanda siempre ha sido mujer, útero, cueva, vaca, Rosaleen, novia, ramera y, por supuesto, la demacrada diosa Hag of Beara (...) Estas infiltraciones han sido narradas e inventadas por hombres y médiums que han descrito la violación del cuerpo y el alma de Irlanda.
Con este comienzo, -que ya es toda una declaración de intenciones-, Edna O'Brien nos introduce en estas pequeñas memorias, publicadas por primera vez en 1976.
Hasta la fecha, no he encontrado a nadie que hable de Irlanda como ella; una tierra que adora, y al mismo tiempo le duele. Un pulso entre las luces y sombras de un país tan poético como duro que reflejó maravillosamente bien en 'Las chicas de campo' o 'Un lugar pagano'. Y es que, esta mujer no lo tuvo nada fácil para escapar de las limitaciones, prejuicios y rigidez a la que se vio sometida.
En este libro esboza un poco la historia irlandesa, su infancia en un pueblecito del condado de Clare, el colegio, su estancia en el convento, los primeros pasos en Dublín y finalmente, la huida a Inglaterra. Escenas de la memoria escritas de una manera muy evocadora que te conectan íntimamente con ella. Al mismo tiempo, no abandona su tono crítico, audaz e ingenioso (confieso que no he dejado de escuchar la voz de Baba de fondo).
Cada capítulo, además, se acompaña de las fantásticas fotografías en blanco y negro de Fergus Bourke, un añadido acertadísimo para completar el retrato de esta tierra indómita que me tiene medio enamorada y espero conocer algún día.
La lástima afloraba también, lástima por una tierra tan a menudo despojada, lástima por un pueblo reacio a admitir que algo va mal. Por eso nos marchamos. Porque suplicamos discrepar. Porque tememos la asfixia psicológica. Pero marcharse solo es condicional. La persona que eres es un anatema para la persona que te gustaría ser.
Con este comienzo, -que ya es toda una declaración de intenciones-, Edna O'Brien nos introduce en estas pequeñas memorias, publicadas por primera vez en 1976.
Hasta la fecha, no he encontrado a nadie que hable de Irlanda como ella; una tierra que adora, y al mismo tiempo le duele. Un pulso entre las luces y sombras de un país tan poético como duro que reflejó maravillosamente bien en 'Las chicas de campo' o 'Un lugar pagano'. Y es que, esta mujer no lo tuvo nada fácil para escapar de las limitaciones, prejuicios y rigidez a la que se vio sometida.
En este libro esboza un poco la historia irlandesa, su infancia en un pueblecito del condado de Clare, el colegio, su estancia en el convento, los primeros pasos en Dublín y finalmente, la huida a Inglaterra. Escenas de la memoria escritas de una manera muy evocadora que te conectan íntimamente con ella. Al mismo tiempo, no abandona su tono crítico, audaz e ingenioso (confieso que no he dejado de escuchar la voz de Baba de fondo).
Cada capítulo, además, se acompaña de las fantásticas fotografías en blanco y negro de Fergus Bourke, un añadido acertadísimo para completar el retrato de esta tierra indómita que me tiene medio enamorada y espero conocer algún día.
La lástima afloraba también, lástima por una tierra tan a menudo despojada, lástima por un pueblo reacio a admitir que algo va mal. Por eso nos marchamos. Porque suplicamos discrepar. Porque tememos la asfixia psicológica. Pero marcharse solo es condicional. La persona que eres es un anatema para la persona que te gustaría ser.
December 9, 2020
Gorgeous, evocative writing. More of an elongated essay than a book, but richly written, linking Ireland's past with that of the author. Beautiful. Highly recommended.
August 21, 2016
Prolific Irish writer Edna O'Brien was born in County Clare in 1930. MOTHER IRELAND is her first nonfiction book: it was written in 1976. O'Brien comments on the title: "Countries are either mothers or fathers...Ireland has always been a woman, a womb, a cave, a cow, a Rosaleen, a sow, a bride, a harlot, and, of course, the gaunt Hag of Beare."
In 1979 I entered the University of North Florida as a night student pursuing a degree in Literature. I joined UNF's Irish Studies program in 1986...its first year of existence...and participated in two literary tours of Ireland sponsored by the University. Irish books were difficult to find in America at the time. A local bookseller ordered me a trilogy of O'Brien's THE COUNTRY GIRLS... her first novels.
But O'Brien's short stories depict for me the 20th century Irishwoman and tell the true revolving story of Mother Ireland. Stories like A Scandalous Woman... The Love Object... Sister Imelda... and Mrs. Reinhardt. Often unattractive characters as "fat, stolid, uninspiring" Hilda (Love) in The Small Town Lovers.
Philip Roth and Frank Tuohy explain the writings of the prolific O'Brien. In his introduction of THE FANATIC HEART: SELECTED STORIES OF EDNA O'BRIEN, Roth relates:
"You see a country and a culture impressing itself deeply on this writer. The country is Ireland, and from the evidence available, she is more succubus than mother. The need to escape is visceral. There is a sense of protest in these stories, but it is often concealed or channeled into pain, perhaps because the author is a woman. The aggression takes the form of an arresting and unfaltering scream. When the background is rural-even barbaric-there is a rawness and earthiness..."
And the academic Frank Tuohy, in an essay about James Joyce, says that while Joyce was the first Irish Catholic writer to make his experience and surroundings recognizable, "the world of Nora Barnacle had to wait for the fiction of Edna O'Brien."
By all means, read this O'Brien memoir about growing up in Ireland and view the countryside in her beloved County Clare ...but find a true portrait of 20th century Irishwomen in the characters of her short stories.
In 1979 I entered the University of North Florida as a night student pursuing a degree in Literature. I joined UNF's Irish Studies program in 1986...its first year of existence...and participated in two literary tours of Ireland sponsored by the University. Irish books were difficult to find in America at the time. A local bookseller ordered me a trilogy of O'Brien's THE COUNTRY GIRLS... her first novels.
But O'Brien's short stories depict for me the 20th century Irishwoman and tell the true revolving story of Mother Ireland. Stories like A Scandalous Woman... The Love Object... Sister Imelda... and Mrs. Reinhardt. Often unattractive characters as "fat, stolid, uninspiring" Hilda (Love) in The Small Town Lovers.
Philip Roth and Frank Tuohy explain the writings of the prolific O'Brien. In his introduction of THE FANATIC HEART: SELECTED STORIES OF EDNA O'BRIEN, Roth relates:
"You see a country and a culture impressing itself deeply on this writer. The country is Ireland, and from the evidence available, she is more succubus than mother. The need to escape is visceral. There is a sense of protest in these stories, but it is often concealed or channeled into pain, perhaps because the author is a woman. The aggression takes the form of an arresting and unfaltering scream. When the background is rural-even barbaric-there is a rawness and earthiness..."
And the academic Frank Tuohy, in an essay about James Joyce, says that while Joyce was the first Irish Catholic writer to make his experience and surroundings recognizable, "the world of Nora Barnacle had to wait for the fiction of Edna O'Brien."
By all means, read this O'Brien memoir about growing up in Ireland and view the countryside in her beloved County Clare ...but find a true portrait of 20th century Irishwomen in the characters of her short stories.
April 5, 2017
Very much reflections of a certain time and place in Ireland and can be a bit rambling, but if you have ever been or enjoy Irish writers, you will find something to like in this work.
Favorite quotes: "People fall in love with Ireland. They go there and are smitten, see the white cottages nestling so to speak beneath the hills, the ranges of brooding blue mountain, the haze above them, the fuchsia hedges in Kerry, the barking dogs, the chalky limestone steppes of west Clare, a phenomenon so unyielding it is as if Wuthering Heights were transmitted from paper to landscape."
"The Irish were so often on the verge of the victorious, when fate, a fresh enemy, bungling, weariness, or inner treachery altered events. So we were told in the classroom day after day, year after year, and so subconsciously we developed our notions of destiny and all its vicissitudes."
"Irish? In truth I would not want to be anything else. It is a state of mind as well as an actual country. It is being at odds with other nationalities, having quite different philosophy about pleasure, about punishment, about life, and about death."
Favorite quotes: "People fall in love with Ireland. They go there and are smitten, see the white cottages nestling so to speak beneath the hills, the ranges of brooding blue mountain, the haze above them, the fuchsia hedges in Kerry, the barking dogs, the chalky limestone steppes of west Clare, a phenomenon so unyielding it is as if Wuthering Heights were transmitted from paper to landscape."
"The Irish were so often on the verge of the victorious, when fate, a fresh enemy, bungling, weariness, or inner treachery altered events. So we were told in the classroom day after day, year after year, and so subconsciously we developed our notions of destiny and all its vicissitudes."
"Irish? In truth I would not want to be anything else. It is a state of mind as well as an actual country. It is being at odds with other nationalities, having quite different philosophy about pleasure, about punishment, about life, and about death."
April 5, 2023
Aquest mes de març vam llegir “Madre Irlanda” al meu club de lectura 💐 i sens dubte ha fet augmentar les meves ganes de seguir llegint l’obra de l’Edna O’Brien.
En aquest breu assaig (per posar-li alguna categoria), l’autora irlandesa ens parla del que per a ella comporta la història del seu país i com els seus habitants s’han anat fent a ella amb el pas del temps.
Per què els irlandesos són un dels pobles que més ha emigrat fora del seu país? Per què, malgrat tantes invasions i opressions, són un poble acollidor i que dona la benvinguda a qualsevol que el visiti? L’O’Brien intenta respondre aquesta classe de preguntes explicant breument la història del seu país i ho fa amb una gran estima a la seva terra d’origen.
És una oda a les seves arrels que m’ha agradat molt llegir, i és que no et pots perdre la pluma de l’Edna. Llegiu qualsevol dels seus llibres! 📔
En aquest breu assaig (per posar-li alguna categoria), l’autora irlandesa ens parla del que per a ella comporta la història del seu país i com els seus habitants s’han anat fent a ella amb el pas del temps.
Per què els irlandesos són un dels pobles que més ha emigrat fora del seu país? Per què, malgrat tantes invasions i opressions, són un poble acollidor i que dona la benvinguda a qualsevol que el visiti? L’O’Brien intenta respondre aquesta classe de preguntes explicant breument la història del seu país i ho fa amb una gran estima a la seva terra d’origen.
És una oda a les seves arrels que m’ha agradat molt llegir, i és que no et pots perdre la pluma de l’Edna. Llegiu qualsevol dels seus llibres! 📔
March 8, 2021
Autobigrafía de Edna O’Brian publicada por primera vez en 1976 y que ahora vuelve a ser recuperada por Lumen: es Madre Irlanda, libro donde la escritora describirá una relación de amor-odio hacia su país de origen con el que tuvo desavenencias importantes sobre los años 60 ya que varias de sus obras fueron prohibidas por la iglesia, entre ellas la trilogía Las chicas del campo, y que fue quemada en diversos lugares del país. Escritora feminista, fue una autora incómoda al reivindicar la desigualdad de la mujer frente a los hombres sobre todo en zonas rurales así como la represión de la iglesia católica.
Un país es o una madre o un padre, y como tal genera el cosquilleo emocional secretamente reservado a uno u otro progenitor. Irlanda siempre ha sido mujer, útero, cueva, vaca, Rosaleen, marrana, novia, ramera y, por supuesto, la demacrada diosa Hag of Beara.
Es indiscutible que, con resentimiento o sin él, Edna O’Brian... https://abrirunlibro.com/2021/03/madr...
Un país es o una madre o un padre, y como tal genera el cosquilleo emocional secretamente reservado a uno u otro progenitor. Irlanda siempre ha sido mujer, útero, cueva, vaca, Rosaleen, marrana, novia, ramera y, por supuesto, la demacrada diosa Hag of Beara.
Es indiscutible que, con resentimiento o sin él, Edna O’Brian... https://abrirunlibro.com/2021/03/madr...
May 11, 2024
"¿Irlandesa? En verdad no quisiera ser nada más. Irlanda es, además de un país, un estado de ánimo. Es estar en desacuerdo con otras nacionalidades, tener una filosofía muy diferente sobre el placer, sobre el castigo, sobre la vida y sobre la muerte."
Unas memorias bellísimas sobre Edna y sobre Irlanda, país que ama y del que no puede esperar para escapar.
Unas memorias bellísimas sobre Edna y sobre Irlanda, país que ama y del que no puede esperar para escapar.
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May 26, 2021Este es un libro de memorias que se publicaron por primera vez en 1976. A través de siete capítulos autobiográficos nos cuenta su vida a la par que nos habla de Irlanda.
Empieza con la historia de Irlanda con sus mitos, leyendas y descripciones del paisaje hasta su llegada a Inglaterra pasando por su infancia en un pueblo del condado de Clare, el colegio, el tiempo que pasó en un convento y su estancia en Dublin donde trabajó en una farmacia.
Con un escritura sencilla y elegante nos cuenta lo que significó para ella su vida en Irlanda en un cultura represiva en la que destaca el miedo a la Iglesia, al hambre, a la vida, los prejuicios, las limitaciones. .. Y también nos cuenta esa necesidad de alejarse de Irlanda y a la vez el gran amor que siente hacia su pais.
Cada capítulo está enriquecido con unas maravillosas fotografías de Fergus Bourke en blanco y negro para ayudarnos a conocer de manera visual esa tierra que Edna nos describe tan espectacularmente, la gente, sus traducciones y su cultura. Maravilloso.
Empieza con la historia de Irlanda con sus mitos, leyendas y descripciones del paisaje hasta su llegada a Inglaterra pasando por su infancia en un pueblo del condado de Clare, el colegio, el tiempo que pasó en un convento y su estancia en Dublin donde trabajó en una farmacia.
Con un escritura sencilla y elegante nos cuenta lo que significó para ella su vida en Irlanda en un cultura represiva en la que destaca el miedo a la Iglesia, al hambre, a la vida, los prejuicios, las limitaciones. .. Y también nos cuenta esa necesidad de alejarse de Irlanda y a la vez el gran amor que siente hacia su pais.
Cada capítulo está enriquecido con unas maravillosas fotografías de Fergus Bourke en blanco y negro para ayudarnos a conocer de manera visual esa tierra que Edna nos describe tan espectacularmente, la gente, sus traducciones y su cultura. Maravilloso.
June 13, 2023
Esta obra es sobre Irlanda.
Pero también es sobre Edna, la nacida irlandesa, escribiendo sobre su "madre".
Su infancia rural, su paso por las aulas, su vida en el convento, la idiosincrasia de su gente, la gran ciudad, la posibilidad de huir de todo y de todos...
Edna O'Brien fue señalada como enemiga de Irlanda.
A ella, a su Irlanda, le dedica este relato mordaz de innegable calidad literaria, con amores y odios entrelazando poesía, naturaleza, religión, melancolía, magia y mandatos.
Esta autora se atreve y se confiesa. Sin vueltas. Sin eufemismos.
Ella es el sueño que Irlanda le dejó soñar.
Ella es el pecado que Irlanda le dejó cometer.
Ella es la mujer, la escritora, la pensadora, que Irlanda le dejó ser.
Lo escrito es puro fuego.
Pero también es sobre Edna, la nacida irlandesa, escribiendo sobre su "madre".
Su infancia rural, su paso por las aulas, su vida en el convento, la idiosincrasia de su gente, la gran ciudad, la posibilidad de huir de todo y de todos...
Edna O'Brien fue señalada como enemiga de Irlanda.
A ella, a su Irlanda, le dedica este relato mordaz de innegable calidad literaria, con amores y odios entrelazando poesía, naturaleza, religión, melancolía, magia y mandatos.
Esta autora se atreve y se confiesa. Sin vueltas. Sin eufemismos.
Ella es el sueño que Irlanda le dejó soñar.
Ella es el pecado que Irlanda le dejó cometer.
Ella es la mujer, la escritora, la pensadora, que Irlanda le dejó ser.
Lo escrito es puro fuego.
February 19, 2021
Leído en castellano, en la nueva y preciosa edición de Lumen. Me encanta Irlanda y los irlandeses, este libro, de 1976, escrito por la nada complaciente Edna O’Brien, con muchas y preciosas fotos en blanco y negro de Fergus Bourke, es un buen retrato de esa tierra antes del nacimiento del Tigre Celta.
March 14, 2023
Un libro que no está escrito con la pretensión de ayudar a que extranjeros conozcan Irlanda, sino que relata la propia relación de la autora con la misma, por lo que tiene muchas referencias que hay que parar a buscar (si es que unx quiere aprender más sobre el país).
Una vez que entendí y me reconcilié con eso, lo disfruté harto. Estaba escrito en difícil, como dijo mi pareja.
Una vez que entendí y me reconcilié con eso, lo disfruté harto. Estaba escrito en difícil, como dijo mi pareja.
March 14, 2024
Edna O'Brien is the literary love of my life
July 19, 2022
3.5 stars
This book is a series of autobiographical essays about the authors early life in mid-century Ireland. She weaves in, especially in the beginning, a lot of Irish history that is both literarily lovely and interestingly written. I had to read with a pen, O’Brien’e way with words was truly stunning sometimes. We learned about her early life in a very small town as well as her young adulthood in a Dublin that was both thrilling but unforgiving. It isn’t fast paced and sometimes it felt almost a bit too ambiguous, like it was beautifully written but I didn’t super have my feet under me well enough to understand what I was reading about. I enjoyed it though and I’m glad I gave this author a try. I think I’ll try her fiction next time.
This book is a series of autobiographical essays about the authors early life in mid-century Ireland. She weaves in, especially in the beginning, a lot of Irish history that is both literarily lovely and interestingly written. I had to read with a pen, O’Brien’e way with words was truly stunning sometimes. We learned about her early life in a very small town as well as her young adulthood in a Dublin that was both thrilling but unforgiving. It isn’t fast paced and sometimes it felt almost a bit too ambiguous, like it was beautifully written but I didn’t super have my feet under me well enough to understand what I was reading about. I enjoyed it though and I’m glad I gave this author a try. I think I’ll try her fiction next time.
February 22, 2025
Oh Edna, the woman that you are
August 18, 2016
I am embarrassed to say that this wonderful memoir sat unread on my bookshelf since the year 2000. I picked it up (and paid for it) at a souvenir shop whilst my sister and I were on a trip to Ireland celebrating my 50th birthday. The author's last name, being the same as my own, very likely had gotten my attention while I was gathering a few books to take home with me at the end of my trip. I have no real excuse for not reading the book other than I tend to favor historical fiction over memoirs. Time passes quickly.
Very recently a new friend suggested I should read some of Edna O'Brien's work, as I myself was attempting to write about Ireland - a rather presumptuous undertaking for someone who had grown up in Canada. I remembered that I had bought Mother Ireland: A Memoir on one of my trips to Ireland and found it standing pristine on my bookshelf among several other well-thumbed books about Irish history.
Mother Ireland is composed of a series of essays that have been arranged in chronological order, each essay forming a separate chapter. The chapters flow smoothly from one to another. Without knowing beforehand, one would never guess that this was not written as a complete work from start to finish.
I enjoyed the initial chapter which gives a compact version of the very complicated history of Ireland from ancient times to the 1800s. The author's prose is rich, colourful, never pedantic.
In subsequent chapters the author begins to tell of her own upbringing in a small town in County Clare. This is when I really get interested. My own mother was born on a farm on the outskirts of a village in County Clare 100 years ago today (amazing but true). She was one of ten children. The stories she told me about growing up in County Clare in the 1920s and 1930s, and my own experiences on visiting County Clare as a child in the 50s and later as an adult, are brought back to me over and over again in the chapters of this memoir.
Just as the author left Clare for Dublin and then England, so did my mother. My mother married my father, one of those "Medical students who behaved wantonly, drank porter..." and got her pregnant, forcing her to marry and therefore requiring her to forfeit the highly regarded civil service job she had attained a few years earlier.
I was the first child of my parents to be born in the New World. My mother named me Clare.
When I read this book it was almost as if my mother was talking to me. Unfortunately I lost my mother 45 years ago when I was 21. This book makes me wish I could have known her for so much longer. I thank the author for bringing her back to me.
Having finished this memoir, I shall read Edna O'Brien's other works starting with Country Girl.
Very recently a new friend suggested I should read some of Edna O'Brien's work, as I myself was attempting to write about Ireland - a rather presumptuous undertaking for someone who had grown up in Canada. I remembered that I had bought Mother Ireland: A Memoir on one of my trips to Ireland and found it standing pristine on my bookshelf among several other well-thumbed books about Irish history.
Mother Ireland is composed of a series of essays that have been arranged in chronological order, each essay forming a separate chapter. The chapters flow smoothly from one to another. Without knowing beforehand, one would never guess that this was not written as a complete work from start to finish.
I enjoyed the initial chapter which gives a compact version of the very complicated history of Ireland from ancient times to the 1800s. The author's prose is rich, colourful, never pedantic.
In subsequent chapters the author begins to tell of her own upbringing in a small town in County Clare. This is when I really get interested. My own mother was born on a farm on the outskirts of a village in County Clare 100 years ago today (amazing but true). She was one of ten children. The stories she told me about growing up in County Clare in the 1920s and 1930s, and my own experiences on visiting County Clare as a child in the 50s and later as an adult, are brought back to me over and over again in the chapters of this memoir.
Just as the author left Clare for Dublin and then England, so did my mother. My mother married my father, one of those "Medical students who behaved wantonly, drank porter..." and got her pregnant, forcing her to marry and therefore requiring her to forfeit the highly regarded civil service job she had attained a few years earlier.
I was the first child of my parents to be born in the New World. My mother named me Clare.
When I read this book it was almost as if my mother was talking to me. Unfortunately I lost my mother 45 years ago when I was 21. This book makes me wish I could have known her for so much longer. I thank the author for bringing her back to me.
Having finished this memoir, I shall read Edna O'Brien's other works starting with Country Girl.
July 1, 2015
Edna O’Brien has been called the “doyenne” of Irish literature and is considered by some to be one of the most gifted writers of her generation. But when her books were first published they were banned in much of Ireland and she was definitely not very well thought of in her native village of Tuamgraney in eastern County Clare. This little volume of seven interconnected and autobiographical essays is a good indication of why the people she grew up with (many of whom show up in her novels) were none too pleased with the picture she paints. But that’s because she was so straightforward in dealing with her complicated and often ambiguous feelings about being Irish. “You are Irish and allocated to you are the tendencies to be wild, wanton, drunk and superstitious, unreliable, backward, toadying and prone to fits, whereas you know that in fact a whole entourage of ghosts resides in you, ghosts with whom the inner rapport is as frequent, as perplexing, as defiant as with any of the living.” It’s all here in this frank and evocatively written memoir which includes references to Irish history, myth and legend as well as beautiful descriptions of the Irish landscape.
But what’s most noteworthy about this book is how brutally honest O’Brien has been in telling her own story about growing up in rural County Clare and the reality of living in a culture that bears little resemblance to the idealized and romanticized images that have evolved about it. She writes of how Ireland had warped her and the people around her “. . .all stooped by a variety of fears – fear of church, fear of gombeenism, fear of phantoms, fear of ridicule, fear of hunger, fear of annihilation and fear of their own deeply ingrained aggression…” But at the same time she speaks passionately and with great affection about images she values including “. . .what is happening in any one of the little towns by day or night, the tillage and the walled gardens, the spilt porter foam along the counters, the argument and ballads, the elevation bell and the prayers for the dead. . .”
This is a haunting book about the what it meant for Edna O’Brien to be stifled and suffocated by a repressive culture while carrying the heart and the soul of Ireland deep within her.
But what’s most noteworthy about this book is how brutally honest O’Brien has been in telling her own story about growing up in rural County Clare and the reality of living in a culture that bears little resemblance to the idealized and romanticized images that have evolved about it. She writes of how Ireland had warped her and the people around her “. . .all stooped by a variety of fears – fear of church, fear of gombeenism, fear of phantoms, fear of ridicule, fear of hunger, fear of annihilation and fear of their own deeply ingrained aggression…” But at the same time she speaks passionately and with great affection about images she values including “. . .what is happening in any one of the little towns by day or night, the tillage and the walled gardens, the spilt porter foam along the counters, the argument and ballads, the elevation bell and the prayers for the dead. . .”
This is a haunting book about the what it meant for Edna O’Brien to be stifled and suffocated by a repressive culture while carrying the heart and the soul of Ireland deep within her.
October 5, 2020
Disappointed because I thought there would be more detail, more description of specific people and places. This is a stream-of-consciousness, a recording of disparate memories, and there are many allusions that I didn't understand. I'll try it again sometime; with more knowledge under my belt about Ireland, it may resonate with me.
Want to Read
February 8, 2010My mom's childhood (life) was not really a happy one. She wasn't particulary fond of the pain Frank McCourt's memoir brought up. He tells some very funny anecdotes but bottom line is if this is too upsetting, I may not finish it.
January 27, 2022
Oh Edna 🥰.
The yearning.
The sensuous encapsulation of her memories in such astounding sentences.
“ I believe that memory and the welter of memory, packed into a single and bereft moment, is the strongest ally a person can have.”
Nonfiction but so distinctly Edna like.
I could hear her breathy voice in my ear as I read her delightfully composed sentences.
It bears all the hallmarks, the building blocks, of her fiction that became my first love, my first, and most long-standing author crush.
Very much of its time.
Published in 1976.
It is Mother Ireland.
It is Ireland as a mother, another woman among the women whispering “about their wombs and their woes.”
“Loneliness, the longing for adventure, the Roman Catholic Church, or the family tie that is more umbilical than among any other race on earth? The martyred Irish mother, and the raving, rollicking Irish father is not peculiar to the works of exorcised writers but common to families throughout the land. The children inherit a trinity of guilts (a Shamrock): the guilt for Christ’s passion and Crucifixion, the guilt for the plundered land, and the furtive guilt for the mother frequently defiled by the insatiable father. All that scenery, all those undercurrents are too much. There is a hopelessness that a glut of natural beauty can create when there is a cultural and intellectual morass. The question is not where have all the fairies gone but where are all the thinkers now.”
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January 1, 2020
Certainly an eye-opener for me. Raised on the brief Irish-American "history" of Ireland of St. Patrick, the druids, the dreaded English, the famine, the struggles and a pint among friends, this look into what Ireland was to a rural Irish girl (who could think clearly and write beautifully!) gave me pause. Just the chapter headings in this short work: Mother Ireland, Home, School, What We Read, Convent, Dublin, England focuses you on all but the most pervasive theme of life growing up in County Clare. That final, untitled component, religion, Catholicism, seeps through the pores of this work, settles in it like the chill, damp October air that blankets the fairest of isles. You see and you feel the constraint, the repression, the powerlessness to God and to conqueror and a sense that the stories of Ireland; no, the storytelling itself is but an outlet to channel the impotence of a people broken by their own history. It's not all Bleak House but it hit me, personally, as a tonic of sorts, a reminder that people and peoples are complex, that myth is helpful but blinding, and that, through it all, there shines a rich but muted fabric of life that is best viewed in detail, with eyes open. Something Ms. O'Brien does quite well.
October 7, 2023
[3.5/5]
"Irlanda siempre ha sido mujer, útero, cueva, vaca, Rosaleen, marrana, novia, ramera y, por supuesto, la demacrada diosa Hag of Beara".
_______________
"Posee Irlanda una belleza anhelosa, pero también una melancolía innegable, la melancolía de saberse aislada, la melancolía de un materialismo furibundo, de la construcción chapucera, de la barbarie visual y una atrofia cultural que cala hasta el cerebro".
_______________
"Lluvia de nuevo, campos mojados, muros mojados, varios arcoíris que abarcan todo el cielo, la sempiterna cabaña de piedra o ladrillo que el secretario de la administración local alaba como contribución a la variedad del paisaje irlandés".
_______________
"Eres irlandesa, declaras con ligereza, y se te atribuye una tendencia natural a ser silvestre, desenfrenada, bebedora, supersticiosa, poco fiable, atrasada, servil y dada a los berrinches, cuando sabes muy bien que en realidad dentro e ti reside un séquito de fantasmas, fantasmas con quienes guardas un contacto interior tan frecuente, tan desconcertante, tan desafiante como el que mantienes con cualquiera de los vivientes".
"Irlanda siempre ha sido mujer, útero, cueva, vaca, Rosaleen, marrana, novia, ramera y, por supuesto, la demacrada diosa Hag of Beara".
_______________
"Posee Irlanda una belleza anhelosa, pero también una melancolía innegable, la melancolía de saberse aislada, la melancolía de un materialismo furibundo, de la construcción chapucera, de la barbarie visual y una atrofia cultural que cala hasta el cerebro".
_______________
"Lluvia de nuevo, campos mojados, muros mojados, varios arcoíris que abarcan todo el cielo, la sempiterna cabaña de piedra o ladrillo que el secretario de la administración local alaba como contribución a la variedad del paisaje irlandés".
_______________
"Eres irlandesa, declaras con ligereza, y se te atribuye una tendencia natural a ser silvestre, desenfrenada, bebedora, supersticiosa, poco fiable, atrasada, servil y dada a los berrinches, cuando sabes muy bien que en realidad dentro e ti reside un séquito de fantasmas, fantasmas con quienes guardas un contacto interior tan frecuente, tan desconcertante, tan desafiante como el que mantienes con cualquiera de los vivientes".
April 26, 2026
A thin book, but one which defies a quick read. Each sentence, each line, is densely packed with ideas and images that carry you along from farm and field to church naves and public houses, city tenements, diaspora and notalgia and longing and searching. There is enough personal, and enough universal, to make this more than a mere oblique memoir. It is only one life, and only one time, but a valid place holder for so many others born and raised there, died there or sailed elsewhere.
Hour after hour I can think of Ireland; I can imagine without going far wrong what is happening in any one of the little towns by day or by night; can see the tillage and the walled garden, see the spilt porter foam along the counters; I can hear argument and ballads, hear the elevation bell and the prayers for the dead.
December 4, 2021
An idiosyncratic memoir whose depth is belied by its brevity, O'Brien signals and hints at far more than she explicitly states in these pages, but those who wonder how one country can be so adept at producing literary exiles can find an answer herein. This little book also goes a long way toward explaining why so many of its many self-exiled writers of note nonetheless can't help writing about the land they'd long since left behind. Land of murk, muck, mystery, and madness, Ireland is all of those things and more moored in the mire of memory. Sorry, just having a little alliterative fun there.
August 27, 2023
A short memoir offering a snapshot of life in rural (for the most part) Ireland from the '30s through to the early '50s, each chapter a short essay on subjects like home life, school, living in a small country town, the meagre entertainments available during that period, entering a convent as a trainee nun, migration to Dublin and eventual emigration. It's worth reading for its descriptions of a now disappeared Ireland (the accompanying photographs by Fergus Bourke with O'Brien's commentaries are excellent, and highly evocative of those times) but it's also dated and from today's perspective a fuller autobiography might be more rewarding. Three and a half stars.
May 6, 2019
I'm only recently on to Edna O'Brien, and this is the first thing I've read after The Country Girls trilogy. Given the similar subject matter, I'm struck by the difference in approaches. In contrast to the direct and personal voice of the trilogy, the narrative voice of Mother Ireland is universal; where O'Brien is describing personal experience, she takes care to present only what is shared by Irish women, Irish ex-pats, Irish artists, Irish poor. Only rarely did I notice the economic prose in the trilogy, but Mother Ireland is lush with it. The book is beautifully written.
March 30, 2024
En este libro, la autora recuerda su infancia y juventud en Irlanda, entregando una visión compleja y subjetiva de su país.
De una forma bellamente elaborada, es capaz de urdir un relato que combina la memoria personal con aspectos esenciales de la cultura, la geografía, la tradición, la historia y la leyenda.
Es la Irlanda de Edna O'Brien, la que lleva marcada a fuego en cuerpo y espíritu.
"Irlanda siempre ha sido mujer, útero, cueva, vaca, Rosaleen, marrana, novia, ramera y, por supuesto, la demacrada diosa Hag of Beara".
De una forma bellamente elaborada, es capaz de urdir un relato que combina la memoria personal con aspectos esenciales de la cultura, la geografía, la tradición, la historia y la leyenda.
Es la Irlanda de Edna O'Brien, la que lleva marcada a fuego en cuerpo y espíritu.
"Irlanda siempre ha sido mujer, útero, cueva, vaca, Rosaleen, marrana, novia, ramera y, por supuesto, la demacrada diosa Hag of Beara".
March 13, 2023
The lyrical writing, the slightly stream-of-consciousness narration, the beautiful descriptions of landscape, the conflict-laden discussions of religion and home and leaving home and growing up and identity: all of these things are what made this short memoir worth my time. The rhythm of the language was at first hard to follow, but once I fell into it, following O’Brien’s lilting voice felt easy, consistent, and cohesive, like sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch.
June 3, 2021
Me encanta Edna O’Brien, me encanta como escribe y la capacidad que tiene de describir todo mientras te sientes parte de la historia. Leyendo este libro he entendido formas de vivir. Es como haber convivido con una familia irlandesa durante un año, ahora comprendo un poco mejor como es Irlanda y su gente.
May 29, 2025
‘You are Irish you say lightly, and allocated to you are the tendencies to be wild, wanton, drunk, superstitious, unreliable, backward, toadying and prone to fits, whereas you know that in fact a whole entourage of ghosts resides in you, ghosts with whom the inner rapport is as frequent, as perplexing, as defiant as with any of the living.’
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