BIO: The enormous success of "To School Through The Fields" thrust this first-time author into the limelight. Alice Taylor admits, "I was writing for myself" - to preserve the memories of childhood, chronicle the history of Lishnaeoga ("the fairy fort"), the farmhouse that her family has owned for eight generations, and to record the story of its inhabitants and their world with a clear-eyed, yet sympathetic understanding of human nature. Her work has been recognized and celebrated at the highest levels of both the Irish and American governments including then president Mary Robinson and Jean Kennedy Smith, US ambassador to Ireland. Often referred to as one of Ireland's best-loved authors, Alice Taylor is a delightful woman, witty, warm, highly capable, and full of self-deprecatory humor. Tall, slim, with white hair and dancing blue eyes, this 60+ lady takes neither herself or her success too seriously. Per Summer 1998 issue of "The World of Hibernia," she frequently mans the counters in the grocery store that he family owns and still helps to operate the town post office, which is also located in the store. Utterly unspoiled by her success, Alice typically builds her own turf fires and often concocts homemade gooseberry jam for visitors. Taylor has been married to Gabriel Murphy for about 30 years; since 1961, the couple has lived in Innishannon, a charming village about 15 miles from the city of Cork. She is the mother of five children and has helped the run a local bed-and-breakfast. In her recently published novel, "The Woman of the House," written at the bedside of her mother who had suffered a stroke, Taylor had many hours to ponder rural women's many contributions to their families and communities. Taylor, who feels that their contributions are often overlooked, wrote "to give them a voice," and to pay tribute "to the strength of women who came off the land." Her "Going to the Well," is a volume of published poems. Alice Taylor recalls the mystique of her own childhood Christmas in Co. Cork in the 1940s: "Christmas in our house was always magical and for weeks beforehand my toes would tingle at the thought of it. The first inkling of its reality was Santa's picture in the "Cork Examiner." We poured over him, loving every wrinkle in his benevolent face. At first his was a small face peering from an obscure corner, but as Christmas drw near his presence became more reassuringly felt as he filled a larger space on the page. The first step in the preparations in our home was the plucking of the geese, not only for our own family but also for all our relations. A night in early December was set aside for killing and plucking; homework has to be completed quickly after school that day and when the cows had been milked and supper finished the kitchen was cleared for the undertaking. I never witnessed the actual killing because my mother performed this ritual away from the eyes of us children, but when she brought the geese still slightly flapping and warm into the kitchen I always felt that she, who was gentle by nature, had been through some sacrificial fire which but for necessity she would have avoided. Each member of the family with arms strong enough sat on a sugan chair with a warm goose across their knee. My father, however, washed his hands of all this crazy carry-on, and after imparting a lecture about relations providing their own Christmas dinner, he set out across the fields roving to a neighbour's house where "sanity" prevailed. Strong feathers were eased off first and put into a big box and then the pure down was stowed in a smaller one. As the night wore on our arms ached and our noses itched with downy fluff, but my mother coaxed and cajoled until half a dozen geese lay starkers on the floor. With our mission accomplished we viewed each other with great merriment, our white down heads and eyebrows lending us the appearance of white-haired gnomes. We tidied everything up then and gathered with cups of cocoa around the open fire, where my father would join us with perfect timing, bringing with him the tang of night air and frost glittering on his high boots." - Excerpt, from her autobiography, "To School Through the Fields..." pub. 1988. > > ==== IrelandGenWeb Mailing List ==== > Please make sure to visit RootsWeb, our hostmaster, at http://www.rootsweb.com > >