A Woven Silence: Memory, History & Remembrance

by Felicity Hayes-McCoy

How do we know that what we remember is the truth? Inspired by the story of her relative Marion Stokes, one of three women who raised the tricolour over Enniscorthy in Easter Week 1916, Felicity Hayes-McCoy explores the consequences for all of us when memories are manipulated or obliterated, intentionally or by chance. In the power struggle after the Easter Rising, involving, among others, Michael Collins and Eamon de Valera, the ideals for which Marion and her companions fought were eroded, resulting in an Ireland marked by chauvinism, isolationism and secrecy. By mapping her own family stories onto the history of the State, Felicity examines how Irish life today has been affected by the censorship and mixed messages of the past.

Absorbing, entertaining and touching, her story moves from Washerwoman’s Hill in Dublin to London and back again, spans two world wars, a revolution, a civil war and the development of a republic, and culminates in Ireland’s 2015 same-sex marriage referendum.

Genres: Ireland, Nonfiction

255 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 1, 2015

About the author

USA Today bestselling Irish writer Felicity Hayes-McCoy is the author of the 'Finfarran' novels, set in a fictional county on Ireland's West Coast. Marian Keyes calls her writing "a pitch-perfect delight", Cathy Kelly, bestselling author of "Between Sisters" and "Secrets of a Happy Marriage", has described the Finfarran books as "a delicious feast", and "sunshine on the page", while Jenny Colgan, bestselling author of "The Cafe by the Sea", calls them "charming and heartwarming".

Felicity's latest book, a standalone novel, The Keepsake Quilters (Hachette Irl), was published in October 2022 to critical acclaim. Best-selling Irish authors Roisin Meaney and Carmel Harringon called it "the perfect festive read" and "warm and wise ... an absolute joy"; Claudia Carroll and Patricia Scanlan wrote of it as "warm, funny and full of heart" and "a fascinating, beautifully-written generational saga"; and television presenters Barbara Scully and Mary Kennedy have described it as "a gorgeous novel" and "a beautifully-crafted story."

Finfarran #1, The Library at the Edge of The World, was published in June 2016: The Sunday Times called it "engaging, sparkling and joyous" and The Sunday Independent wrote "If you like reading a feelgood novel, take a journey to the edge of the world. An easy, pleasant summer read for fans of Maeve Binchy".

Summer at The Garden Café, the second in the Finfarran series, came out in the UK & Irl May 2017, The Mistletoe Matchmaker, a warm, empowering Christmas story, in October 2017, and The Month of Borrowed Dreams, in June 2018: The Irish Independent's review called it "a heartwarming novel which will leave you longing to read the earlier ones". The best-selling author Marian Keyes said she was "utterly charmed" by Finfarran #5, The Transatlantic Book Club, which was published in 2019.

A US & Canadian edition of The Library at the Edge of The World, published by Harper Perennial in Nov 2017, was chosen as a LibraryReads Pick. The US & Canadian edition of Summer at The Garden Café was published in 2018, The Mistletoe Matchmaker followed in 2019, The Transatlantic Book Club in 2020, The Month of Borrowed Dreams in 2021, and The Heart of Summer in 2022.

Finfarran #7, The Year of Lost and Found, was published by Hachette Irl in May 2021, and praised as "the perfect, page-turning escape" and "the best book of the year so far for me" by best-selling Irish authors Sinéad Moriarty and Claudia Carroll. It was preceded in 2020 by Finfarran #6, The Heart of Summer, of which Ireland's Sunday Business Post reviewer wrote "This works perfectly well as a standalone novel ... her writing sings", and bestselling author Patricia Scanlan commented "Fans of Maeve Binchy will adore it - she just gets better and better!"

The Finfarran novels have been translated into seven languages and can also be purchased in English as ebooks and audiobooks.

Described as 'wise, funny' and 'blazingly beautiful' by actress and writer Joanna Lumley, Felicity's first memoir, The House on an Irish Hillside was published by Hodder & Stoughton in 2012. It takes the author to London, where she worked as an actress and met her English, opera-director husband, and back to Ireland, to a remarkable stone house on the Dingle peninsula.

Enough Is Plenty: The Year on the Dingle Peninsula, a sequel to The House on an Irish Hillside, was published by The Collins Press in 2015. Illustrated with photographs by Felicity and her husband, and with a foreword by the best-selling Irish writer Alice Taylor, it charts the cycle of the Celtic year in Felicity's own house and garden.

A second memoir, A Woven Silence: Memory, History & Remembrance, described by The Sunday Times as 'a powerful piece of personal and political history', was published in September 2015, also by The Collins Press. Inspired by the lost story of her grandmother's cousin Marion Stokes, one of three women who raised the tricolour over Enniscorthy town in Wexford dur

Reviews

[Pam Venne]

This was a difficult read because of the many strange names of places, traditions, religiously-based concepts, and spelling with no "z" in words. My appreciation for the Irish has substantially grown with a better understanding of their culture.

Felicity Hayes-McCoy describes in great detail the political, cultural, and social events that led up to, during and after the Easter Week Rising of 1915. Her curiosity as to why no one ever spoke about the "war" came to light through letters and extensive research.

What she found most interesting was how different members of her family remembered the events. It was only through thorough investigation and evaluation that she realized the lenses each possessed were distinct based on their personalities. The same would be for each family. Try it on yours!

[Ktmholm · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Woven Silence was inspired by a chance remark at a book signing, that family members who shared the same family events rarely remember them in the same way. The author reflects on one of her women relatives who played a part in the 1916 Irish fight for independence, who, for as long as she lived, never again spoke about her part in it, nor did most of her other relatives who lived through other struggles. Sometimes this was born of necessity, when being closed-mouthed was required to survive, such as during the Irish Civil War, when neighbors turned against one another. However, the Ireland with high ideals that so many people fought and died for, by the mid- 1950s had turned into an Ireland “marked by chauvinism, isolationism and secrecy,” as the back cover states. This was especially true for women, who had very few legal rights until the 1970s and beyond. The author describes her own family stories placed upon a background of Irish history, and how sad it is that so many people, even today, know little or nothing about their own family stories. Though not a quick or easy read (particularly with the numerous Irish and British terms), it captured (and kept) my attention. I received not only a general introduction into Irish history and culture, but also a realization of its complexity.

[Wendy Anderson]

If you’re looking for an engrossing read that delves comprehensively into Irish history in the modern era, look no further than A WOVEN SILENCE, by Felicity Hayes-McCoy (The Collins Press, 2015). It is, by turns, a nuanced account of the fight for Irish Independence from 1919-22—followed by a ten-month civil war; an intimate excavation of the involvement of some of her family members, primarily her grandmother’s cousin Marion Stokes (who joined the rebel uprising early on); and an impassioned analysis of the ongoing fight for women’s rights in the decade since. Legendary Irish leaders Éamon de Valera and Michael Collins are brought to vivid life; Hayes-McCoy’s father was a notable historian of the times in which he lived, and the atmosphere of learning and social issues, in which she was raised, serves her well in understanding the many facets of the revolution. It’s impossible not to empathize with her parents’ generation, literally the traumatized children of a brutal civil war, and further, to make connections with the social, political, cultural and especially religious climate of twentieth-century Ireland. Particularly as England and the EU navigate Brexit, A WOVEN SILENCE facilitates deeper insight into “the Irish question”, so essential to the larger discussion.