Road trip and crime thriller set in HELSINKI and rural FINLAND
Talking Location With Marian O’Shea Wernicke – BANTRY
2nd March 2023
#TalkingLocationWith… Marian O’Shea Wernicke, author of Out of Ireland
Bantry: A Hidden Gem
Tucked away in the southwest corner of Ireland is a small gem of a town that not many lovers of Ireland explore. Bantry Town, on Bantry Bay, a long thirty-mile bay surrounded by the blue Caha Mountains in the distance, is the setting for the first part of my of my novel, Out of Ireland. Inspired by the few facts I knew about the early life in Ireland of my maternal great-grandmother, I’d decided to try to imagine what her life had been like by writing a novel which would take place from 1867 to 1873. Digging into the few facts I knew of her life led me to the town of Bantry.
In 1971, my grandmother and her younger sister, both in their 80s by then, exchanged letters asking each other what they each remembered about the early life of their mother, Ellen Hickey Sullivan Jewett, an Irish immigrant. Nettie, my grandmother, claimed that their mother had been born in Bantry in County Cork, and that she had spoken of her childhood where they had only black bread to eat at times and had lived near the sea. I had been to Ireland twice before, visiting Dublin, and then traveling west to Killarney, the Ring of Kerry, Galway and even Inishmore, one of the Aran Islands, but I had never been to Bantry. So my husband and I decided to visit Bantry to walk in the steps of my great-grandmother, smell the air, feel the wind from the Atlantic on a stormy day, and visit the places she had known as a girl.
St. Brendan the Navigator, Patron of travellers
I did my homework first, consulting several guide books, all of which had only a page or two on Bantry. To my surprise, Bantry had been a hot bed of revolutionary fervor for the past 200 years. In 1796, the Irish patriot, Wolfe Tone, who founded the Society of United Irishmen to rid Ireland of British rule, led an expedition from France, called the French Armada Expedition, (the French being enemies of England, so delighted to help rebellion). The Armada sailed into Bantry Bay with 43 ships, but a huge storm battered the fleet, leaving Tone and the French with only 16 ships to go against the mighty British Navy. Thus they were forced to turn back. Tone led another expedition in 1798, landing at Donegal, but after fierce fighting over several weeks the rebellion was put down, and Tone was captured, committing suicide before the British could execute him. Much later in the time of the Easter Rising in 1916 and the Irish Civil War in the early 20s, the elegant seat of the Earls of Bantry called Bantry House was taken over by the Irish Republican Brotherhood as headquarters. Later it was used as a hospital run by the Sisters of Mercy.
Now Bantry House was described in detail in all the guidebooks, with photos showing the great house and its Italianate gardens overlooking the Bay. I was thrilled when I discovered that this house was open to visitors, and even better, there were six guest rooms available as a bed and breakfast. We decided to splurge and booked a room for a few nights. It would be fun to see how the Anglo-Irish gentry had lived, surely not my great-grandmother’s people’s experience. Arriving at Shannon Airport in the early morning, we rented a car and took the slow, winding, lonely road down to Bantry. It was the first Friday in June, Market Day in Bantry, and the town square was bustling with people visiting the market stalls, haggling over fresh produce, clothing, and household items with much friendly banter. We examined a modernist statue of Saint Brendan, the Navigator, ( 484 A.D. to 519 A.D.) Brendan’s legend is famous throughout Europe, and he is the patron saint of travelers and sailors. The local Church of Ireland (Protestant) in Bantry is named after him.
Another older statue looms over the town square, the figure of Wolfe Tone, the never-daunted Irish patriot. The Irish celebrate those who failed in the cause of Irish independence as well as those who won.
Statue of Wolfe Tone
After a delicious seafood lunch in a restaurant on the Square, mesmerized by the accent of the people of the west of Ireland, so different from the accent of Dublin people, we wandered the town, visiting the Bantry Museum, a homey small space, cluttered with memorabilia in no particular order, and staffed by a friendly lady happy to explain each item. We paid a visit to St. Brendan’s Parish Church, built in 1815. Later we climbed up the hill to the Catholic Church, St. Finbarr’s. Surely my great-grandmother would have been baptized here, made her first communion, and married here in what was a forced marriage. We explored the parish cemetery, looking for the last name Hickey, but no luck.
Finally it was time to check into Bantry House. We parked in a lot some way from the house and walked up a long driveway amidst dense woods until finally the great house appeared before us. The back entrance was modest, as it is the front of the house which faces the Bay that is the original entrance, but stepping into the hall we were transported to the 18th century, as a handsome young Irishman led us through the house explaining its long history since 1739 as home of the White family, later the Earls of Bantry. Richard White was named Earl as a reward for helping to fight off Wolfe Tone and the French and Irish patriots in the rebellion. Today the house is owned by descendants of the original family, Brigitte Shelswell-White, and managed by her children, daughter Sophie and partner Josh, her son Sam, and another daughter, Julie. The family is around all the time and happy to stop and chat with any guests.
As our guide led us through rooms decorated with ancient portraits, tapestries, soft, rose-colored drapes, and long windows framing the views of the bay sparkling in the summer afternoon sun, my central character, who would be named Eileen in the novel, was emerging in my imagination. Of course! As the daughter of a poor Irish peasant working the landowners’ farm, she would be working in a Big House like this! When we came to the most beautiful room in the house, a long room lined with books, old and musty, long windows facing the beautiful gardens below, and two fireplaces, one on each end of the room with comfortable sofas and chairs arranged in front of them, I could see her gazing around at all the books, wishing she too lived in a house like this with time to sit and read while rain spattered on the windows on a squally day.
Bantry Bay
Our bedroom in the guest part of the house was delightful, with windows overlooking the gardens. The next morning at breakfast in the pretty dining room reserved for guests we met several people who all had their own stories for wanting to stay in the house. One man we met said his grandmother had worked in Bantry House as a girl! Further proof, if I needed any, that my character could have a similar experience. Soon Eileen’s brother Michael would emerge in my mind, a restless young man working for the Earl but resenting the poverty he and his family endured as second class citizens in their own country.
I hope you too will consider a trip back in time to visit the town of Bantry before it is discovered by hordes of tourists, a port town with friendly, loquacious people who love to pass the time of day talking proudly about the history of their town.
Not to Be Missed in Bantry:
Wolfe Tone Square
Market Day, first Friday of every month
St. Brendan the Navigator statue and Church
Bantry Museum
St. Finbarr Church
Bantry House and Gardens
Boat trip to Whiddy Island
About the Author
Marian O’Shea Wernicke is the author of Out of Ireland, her second novel, which will be published by She Writes Press on April 25, 2023. Born and raised in an Irish Catholic family in St. Louis, Missouri, Wernicke’s frist novel TowardThat That Which is Beautiful, was a finalist in both Literary Fiction and Romance Fiction in the 2021 Independent Book Awards, and a Finalist in Multicultural Fiction in the 2021 American Fiction Awards. The 2021 Catholic Press Association awarded the novel Honorable Mention in Fiction. She is also the author of a memoir about her father, Tom O’Shea: A Twentieth Century Man. A nun for eleven years, Wernicke worked in Lima, Peru, for three years. After leaving the convent, Wernicke taught English as a Second Language in Madrid, Spain with St. Louis University, and taught bi-lingual Spanish speaking students at Holyoke High School in Massachusetts. Later she was a professor of English at Pensacola Junior College for 25 years, where she was faculty editor of the literary magazine, The Hurricane Review. Marian married Michael Wernicke in 1976, and they are the parents of three adult children. After years of living in Pensacola, Florida, they moved to Austin, Texas, where they enjoy being near their children and grandson. Michael died this past December, but he lives on in their children and grandchildren.
Connect with the author via her website
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What an amazing piece, Marian.
As more of a confirmed armchair traveller, than real life adventurer, I always enjoy a storyline where I can track actual locations and view interesting places and features.
Bantry Bay and the other locations you pointed to, couldn’t have piqued my interest more.
I have added ‘Out Of Ireland’ to my wish list and can’t wait to read it!
Than you 🙂