Family memoir author chat in Creans on Friday
Newbridge author Maria McDonald will be on hand to talk about her book 'Charlie Mac', the story of her great-grandfather - a Protestant from East Belfast who married a Catholic from rural County Down. His life which began in the hope of Home Rule for Ireland was ended abruptly by sectarian murderers.
In an uncomfortable parallel, Maria's own parents felt obliged to leave their native Belfast in September 1976, as the day-to-day reality of the Troubles descended into a vortex of sectarian violence. They built a new life in Kildare, becoming immersed in sport and social activities in their adopted hometown of Newbridge.
Beginning at 10am in Crean's Place, there'll be coffee and a chat, and possibly from it someone else might be encouraged to do something similar about their own family.
In an era when social media and the internet have become in large part the repositories of history in the making, and the growing realisation that the same internet and its systems are terribly fragile, the importance of actually writing down family history and memoir on paper is beginning to come back to where it needs to be.
Remember, if we haven't recorded the stories of our lives and families in some permanent way, it could be as if they never were when the living memories of them pass on.
'Charlie Mac' is currently available from Farrell & Nephew, Newbridge, and Woodbine Books, Kilcullen, Price €12.
Kilcullen Diary Policy on Photographs.
