Light touch as Felicity explores dark legacy

Arts Week with Judy Murphy

A conversation with President Michael D Higgins during a visit to the Áras a couple of years ago, helped inform the latest novel by writer Felicity Hayes McCoy. Felicity, who has a keen interest in history, was chatting with the President about the Decade of Commemorations, specifically in relation to the Civil War, which was a looming event in that particular calendar.

They were discussing how to have a national conversation about the devastating civil strife that followed Ireland’s War of Independence and how such a conversation could be contained – or indeed if it should be contained.

Felicity’s latest novel, The Year of Lost and Found, is based on the life of Hanna Casey, an ordinary librarian in a rural Irish town who is faced with a major problem as she discovers a long-forgotten story linking her family and other local families to the Civil War.

The county librarian, a man for the grand gesture and self-promotion, has decided to call upon people countywide to bring in artefacts relating to this period in history to their local libraries. Staff must follow his orders.  But, when Hanna coincidently discovers an important document written by her dead grandaunt, she has a dilemma – how can she leave her family’s past buried while other people are being asked to share their family stories?

“This is a book about ordinary people who happen to get caught in the crossfire of history,” its author explains.

Although Felicity was born and reared in Dublin, she has strong links with Galway. Her father, Gerard, was reared in Eyre Square and later went on to become Professor of History at the then-UCG. Gerard, who died in 1975, was also deeply involved in the campaign to save Galway’s medieval heritage, one of the few people back then to recognise its importance.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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