Light on Distant Hills: A Memoir

by Cathal Ó Searcaigh

LIGHT ON DISTANT HILLS is poet Cathal O'Searcaigh's memoir of his childhood in rural Donegal. A remarkably lyrical telling by one of Ireland's favourite poets, this memoir is Cathal's first work of prose in English. Cathal grew up in the 1950s and 60s on the harsh peaty acres of a Donegal hill farm, where his illiterate mother believed in the fairies and knew more about their movements than of their own neighbours. The locals were an assortment of odd characters too, from artists, drunken randy farmers to the all-conquering parish priest. Growing up with Gaelic as his first language, Cathal began to understand the excitement of linking images with words and creating poetry. Throughout all this time, with his father working away in Scotland and his mother keeping the farm together, Cathal had free rein for adventure. He sensitively describes how he discovers he is gay and his first sexual experience with an older boy. Needing to earn money and broaden his horizons, Cathal moves to London to work in a bar. His delicate rendering of this harsh and sometimes violent world is beautifully wrought. The book ends with Cathal's journey turning back towards home and his acceptance of living amongst his own people once again.

Genres: Memoir

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Cathal Ó Searcaigh (born 12 July 1956) is an Irish poet who writes in the Irish language (specifically the Ulster dialect).

Ó Searcaigh was born in Gort a' Choirce, a town in the Gaeltacht region of Donegal, and lives at the foot of Mount Errigal. He is openly gay.

Ó Searcaigh was awarded the Seán Ó Riordáin Prize for Poetry in 1993 and the Duais Bhord na Gaeilge in 1995. He is a member of Aosdána and in 2006 won The American Ireland Fund Literary Award.

Reviews

[Yooperprof · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written memoir of a Gaelic poet's upbringing - in the 1960s - in a remote and traditional village in the northwest corner of Ireland (County Donegal). O'Searcaigh writes about the gradual awakening of his poetic voice, and also his tentative explorations of homosexuality, first in rural Ireland and later in the metropole of London.