Author Tracey Iceton shares her thoughts about Ireland North and South

14th October 2017

#TalkingLocation With… Tracey Iceton, author of Herself Alone in Orange Rain – Ireland North and South

Tracey Iceton

Boots on the ground…. 

As a historical novelist it’s important for me that readers experience the reality of a novel’s settings as well as the events and people. To achieve this I like ‘boots on the ground’ researching because, by knowing the places myself my descriptions of them are more vivid, helping readers to feel they actually been to wherever my novels go.

Parts one and two of my Celtic Colours trilogy, Green Dawn at St Enda’s and Herself Alone in Orange Rain, retell historical events that happened in real places so, to convincingly depict those events, I had to set my fictional accounts of them in their real life locales. There are many locales across the novels and I can’t cover them all but join me for this whistle-stop tour of some key Irish locations.

St Enda’s School for Boys, now the Pearse Museum, Dublin

St Enda’s was the school ran by Patrick Pearse, one of the leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising that Green Dawn centres on. Handily for me it’s now the Pearse Museum, decked out as it was when it was St Enda’s. So I was able to see what my fictional character, Finn, would have seen when he’s there as a pupil between 1911-16. Standing in Pearse’s office in particular was a powerful experience as I imagined poor Finn there, getting a telling off from the very real Headmaster Pearse.

Caoilainn, the protagonist in book two, also visits St Enda’s but her experience is closer to my own as she goes in the 1980s, shortly after it opened as a museum. So writing the scenes of her visit I drew on my own experience of awe as I rambled over the building and grounds.

Pearse’s Cottage, Rosmuc, Galway

The cottage, now also a museum, is where Pearse took the St Enda’s boys for holidays and where he personally was most at home. It features in both novels, Finn going there with Pearse before the rising and Caoilainn visiting it during the 1980s when it would have been minded by a caretaker but not open to the public. The atmosphere is still and solemn, with an almost ominous presence surrounding the cottage. I describe the wee whitewashed, thatched-roof abode sat above a lough up a Galway hillside as ‘brooding’ because that summed up my feeling for the place. I later learnt that Pearse’s own sister also referred to the cottage as ‘brooding’ which somewhat unnerved me.

The cottage from the road

Armagh Gaol, Armagh, Northern Ireland

Up until the mid 1980s this Victorian building housed female prisoners, predominantly Republican and, like many of her real life counter-parts (spoiler alert!) Caoilainn ends up within its red brick walls during Herself Alone. The gaol is now derelict so I could only view the exterior personally. It was a dark and stormy night (sorry, but it really was!) and the imposing mansion curdled my insides as I imagined how miserable life on the inside must have been for inmates.

Armagh Gaol

Milltown Cemetery, West Belfast

Milltown Cemetery

Perhaps appropriately, this Catholic graveyard is the final (almost) stop on our tour. Tall monuments, most topped with crosses, pierce the skyline as you walk among the graves. I knew several crucial scenes in Herself Alone would take place in this infamous locale so visiting it was not optional, however much I dreaded doing so. Armed with directions scribbled on scrap paper and given to me by Danny Morrison (formerly Sinn Fein’s publicity director who I met while researching the novels) I found the graves of key Republican figures including Bobby Sands and Mairead Farrell. Standing before those plaques I was assaulted by the tragedy of war, a feeling which pervaded my writing and which I attempted to subdue by visiting The Felons Club. This watering hole is, coincidentally, just across the road from Milltown. Originally established for convicted Republicans, the club now welcomes tourists with Irish ‘craic’ and is just the place to both forget and remember the Troubles.

The Felons Club

Everywhere I visited while researching the novels I encountered nothing but warm welcomes from locals, some of whom even imparted interesting snippets of history or recounted personal experiences that were invaluable to my writing, helping me to capture the setting and tell the stories with, what I hope, is a vital note of authenticity. ‘Boots on the ground’ is definitely the way to do it. My only grumble about Ireland was the weather but then I did go twice in winter so that serves me right. Luckily part three of the trilogy, White Leaves of Peace, is partially set on Australia’s Sunshine Coast!

Thank you so much to Tracey for sharing her favourites for a trip to Ireland.

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