Frank on video: Ireland and Storytelling

Several years ago, Frank introduced his novel Ireland in the following video. Click below for more...

Comments

[Gail Henderson]

I do so love the book Ireland. I love Ireland and try to read anything I can about it. I am of Irish and Scotish decent. I have been to Ireland five times and would live there if I could afford it. I am hoping that you have been approach about a movie for this book...I think it is far better than Angeles Ashes, Circle of Friends, or Gangs of New York. Surely someone in Hollywood can see the value of a movie from this book.

[Donn Barrett]

Hello Mr. Delaney, I discovered you through your novel "Ireland" and again when your novel "Tipperary" was published. When "Shannon" was launched I rushed to the purchase. When I was young my mother would tell me not to eat my dinner so fast. "Eat it slow and enjoy it", she would say. Well, I've taken her advice while reading your novels. I read them slowly, sometimes re-reading pasages, so as not to miss any taste of your prose. One of the greatest lines I've ever read appears in the hardbound "Shannon", Chapter 10, page 108: "Michael the Lion filled himself a tumbler of whiskey large enough to kick-start a shore leave." I was in the U.S. Navy many years ago and am acquainted with leaping into many a shore leave.
I am 3rd generation Irish. My father's grndparents were born in the townlands of Cavan and Glenoghil respectively near the village of Ballinalee, County Longford. Ballinalee is famous for being associated with Sean Mac Eoin, the Blacksmith of Ballinalee. General Mac Eoin was Michael Collins' right hand man in the Midlands. In 1997 my wife and I were fortunate to be able to purchase a small cottage 1.5 miles from the village of Ballinalee. During the evening of January 7-8, 1921, the cottage, a safe house, was the site of a gun battle between a small group of IRA, led by Mac Eoin, and a contingent of Auxilliaries and Black and Tans under the direction of District Inspector James McGrath. The battle and the life of Sean Mac Eoin was put to print by the late Padraic O'Farrell in his book "Sean Mac Eoin - The Blacksmith of Ballinalee". Uisneach Press, 1993.
Each year we go home and spend quality time in our small cottage. Walking the Black Island Road and marveling at the Irish mist that will occasionally float atop the rushes in our acre and a half field that adjoins the cottage.
When you speak in your novels about narrow lanes, smoothed flagstones in the main living area - "kitchen" of a small cottage, open hearth fireplaces with the cooking utensils hanging from the crane, and many of the other important minutiae that takes me home, you are speaking of our cottage. It was completed in July 1893.

Thank you for indulging me. I look forwared to your next novel.

Regards,
Donn Barrett
Portland, Oregon - and
Black Island Road
Kilshruley, Ballinalee
County Longford
Republic of Ireland