Authors [ O ]
Geraldine O'Neill,
Author of Tara Flynn, Aisling Gayle, Tara's Fortune, The Grace Girls and A Different Kind of Dream
From an early age, growing up in Scotland , I could always be found with a book or pencil in my hand. Reading or scribbling. And hiding. With four sisters and a brother, I was always looking for a quiet place to read where I would not be disturbed.
For years after that my only writing was school-related. Around the age of 16 I achieved literary fame during my English ‘O’ Level exam by inventing a whole book and then speeding straight on to criticise it. All in the space of about an hour. It was inspiringly entitled ‘Cry on the Battlefront’, and to date is the only war book I’ve ever written or pretended to read. My English teacher warned me I would be disqualified from the exam when my fraudulent book was discovered. But interestingly enough, I wasn’t found out, and instead was awarded an A-Pass in English Literature. When I went on to teacher-training college in England, my writing was restricted to academic subjects, and then for a number of years, my time was taken up with my family and my teaching career and I did no writing at all.
I moved with my family to Daingean in County Offaly in 1991. Just prior to the move I had re-discovered my love of creative writing and had joined a writers’ group in Stockport near Manchester . When I moved to County Offaly , I rang the library to enquire if there was a writers’ group in the area. The County Librarian said that there was none, but she would be happy to advertise and help set one up. That was ten years ago, and the Offaly Writers’ Group has gone from strength to strength with around a dozen members. During that time – and under the guidance of Malcolm Ross-McDonald – we have produced several published writers.
During my ten years with the group, I have won a couple of short story awards, and I have had a number of poems published in anthologies.In February 2002 Poolbeg published Tara Flynn.
Apart from writing, my other love is reading. Three years ago I set up the Tullamore Book Circle , which (like the Writers’ Group) has also gone from strength to strength. Every month a member selects a new title (from Booker prize-winning books to cookery books) and we all buy and read the book. We take turns hosting the evenings in our homes, and we turn up with the book in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other.
Books
Aisling Gayle
From Tullamore to the idyllic surrounds of Lake Savannah in Upstate New York, Geraldine O'Neill's latest novel draws us into the absorbing, fascinating and often moving world of her eponymous heroine, Aisling Gayle. Repeatedly humiliated by her philandering husband's affairs Aisling finally reaches breaking point and escapes, if temporarily, to Upstate New York for a family wedding. On the shores of Lake Savannah she begins to live.
Aisling Gayle is one of life's pleasers. A young country schoolteacher in 60s Ireland , she spends her life pleasing philandering, Jack-the-lad husband Oliver and pious mother Maggie.
She also worries about her sister Pauline, home from England with an illegitimate child, and her brother Charles who sees life differently to most other people. Aisling's wedding anniversary reveals Oliver's latest infidelity and she decides to escape for the summer accompanying her parents to beautiful Lake Savannah in Upstate New York.
There she meets Thomas Carroll a slow but amiable teenager and a frightening encounter introduces her to his father, reclusive artist Jameson Carroll. Soon Aisling finds herself in a once-in-a-lifetime passionate affair. As return to Ireland , and Oliver looms can her passion overcome the obstacles awaiting her? Can Aisling Gayle find the courage at long last, to please herself?
Following the success of her critically acclaimed first novel Tara Flynn, (soon to be released worldwide) O'Neill delivers once more with her plethora of colourful characters and her insightful and emotional straight to the heart style of writing.
A Different Kind Of Dream
A Different Kind of Dream is set in the 1950’s Ireland that Geraldine O’Neill has visited in several of her previous novels, and her new, compelling characters have echoes for both the young and the young-at-heart. Raven-haired Kate Flowers lives on the banks of the canal in Ballygrace, looking after widowed mother, Mary, and undependable brother, Brendan, who works on the barges.
Life starts to change when Kate meets handsome boatman, Michael O’Brien, and she casts aside her dreams, for the conventional path of marriage and motherhood. But trouble looms when Mary visits sister, Rose, in Stockport and re-discovers her forgotten youth and finds a new interest in men.
When the canal barges are threatened, Brendan is torn between emigration and his secret love for the daughter of a volatile neighbour. Then suddenly, the family’s life is shattered when a tragedy occurs.
The Flowers family are forced to rebuild their lives in new surroundings that will test them, and help them find the courage to bloom once again.
A Different Kind of Dream is Geraldine O’Neill’s fifth novel to be published by Poolbeg in Ireland , following the success of bestsellers, Tara Flynn, Aisling Gayle, Tara ’s Fortune and The Grace Girls. Geraldine O’Neill is a best selling author having sold almost 20,000 copies of her books in Ireland alone.
This latest book has all the hallmarks and warmth of Geraldine’s previous novels, and she returns to the Irish Midlands once again, to the familiar Offaly landscape of the Tara Flynn books and the fictitious village of Ballygrace .
Geraldine O’Neill’s A Different Kind of Dream, published 28 th February 2007 Price €9.99
Tara's Fortune
The evocative sequel to Tara Flynn in the great storytelling tradition of
Maeve Binchy
New from captivating author Geraldine O’Neill comes the return of the fiery Tara in Tara’s Fortune, the eagerly awaited sequel to her debut novel, Tara Flynn – a novel which was compared favourably by critics to Maeve Binchy.
It is the early 1960s and flame haired Tara Flynn has almost everything she ever dreamed of as a child growing up in Ireland. Married to her first love Gabriel Fitzgerald, she is now mistress of Ballygrace House overlooking the Tullamore countryside. But after several years of marriage there is still one thing missing – a much longed for baby.
Tara remains loyal to Biddy Harte who has left her troubled past in Ballygrace behind and is now a respected landlady in Stockport . When Biddy’s husband Fred is seriously injured in the wrestling ring, Tara soon realises that Biddy has reverted to her old ways.
And when the shocking consequences of her actions are revealed Biddy discovers that all her friendships – including Tara ’s – are sorely tested. But Biddy is not Tara ’s only concern as a terrible tragedy takes Tara ’s idyllic life back into the darker days of her past.
Tara’s Fortune is a vivid and stirring novel, which moves seamlessly between locations and eras. Her novels have been snapped up by Orion Publishing Group in the UK , and Geraldine seems poised on the brink of international acclaim.
Originally from Scotland , Geraldine O'Neill had amassed quite a number of awards for her short stories before she embarked on her first novel - Tara Flynn. She instigated the formation of the Offaly Writers’ Group, which has now been running for nearly ten years. She is currently a national schoolteacher in Tullamore. She previously spent three years teaching adults with learning disabilities.
Tara’s Fortune by Geraldine O’Neill published on 14 th May 2004 .
Price €9.99
