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Back A Family Reunion Save as PDF
Chapters (66)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Epigraph
  4. PROLOGUE
  5. PART ONE
  6. CHAPTER ONE
  7. CHAPTER TWO
  8. CHAPTER THREE
  9. CHAPTER FOUR
  10. CHAPTER FIVE
  11. CHAPTER SIX
  12. CHAPTER SEVEN
  13. CHAPTER EIGHT
  14. CHAPTER NINE
  15. CHAPTER TEN
  16. CHAPTER ELEVEN
  17. CHAPTER TWELVE
  18. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  19. PART TWO
  20. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  21. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  22. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  23. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  24. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  25. CHAPTER NINETEEN
  26. CHAPTER TWENTY
  27. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  28. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  29. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  30. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
  31. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
  32. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
  33. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
  34. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
  35. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
  36. CHAPTER THIRTY
  37. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
  38. CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
  39. PART THREE
  40. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
  41. CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
  42. CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
  43. CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
  44. CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
  45. CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
  46. CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
  47. CHAPTER FORTY
  48. CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
  49. CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
  50. CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
  51. CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
  52. CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
  53. CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
  54. CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
  55. CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
  56. CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
  57. CHAPTER FIFTY
  58. CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
  59. CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
  60. CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
  61. CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
  62. CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
  63. CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
  64. EPILOGUE
  65. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  66. About the Author

‘We got a letter from Brigid. Your father read it to me. She’s spent six months in Nigeria setting up a clinic like the one she’s running out in the bush in Senegal. She wants us to hold a Bring and Buy Sale, for Christmas, to help her to raise funds. I’ve asked the new priest for the loan of the parish hall, and he kindly said yes. We can have it next Saturday. Will you ask Larry to give us a few contributions for the Wheel of Fortune? And will you sell some tickets in the shop, and bake a few fairy cakes? Yours are as light as a feather. And will you get a loan of the Burco boiler from the Tech and drop it down to the hall?’ Elizabeth turned to her and issued her list of requirements, much to Imelda’s chagrin.

Did her mother think that she’d nothing better to do than bake cakes and sell tickets and lug Burco boilers around Ardcloch? Didn’t Brigid have the life of Reilly, flitting around Africa between convents! Not for her sister the washing of their grandmother’s stinky, urine-sodden sheets, or ferrying ailing relatives around, morning, noon and night.

‘I’ll do what I can, Mam,’ Imelda said dourly. Her parents lived for Brigid’s airmail letters with all the news of their daughter’s exotic lifestyle in the wilds of Africa. She was now practically a saint in their eyes.

‘You’re in bad form,’ her mother noted. ‘Is Aunt Flow in town?’

I wish, thought Imelda, unwilling to tell her mother that it was precisely the fact that she hadn’t got her period that was causing her bad humour.

‘No. I’m tired, that’s all. Buying in the stock for Christmas is always a busy time in the shop and I didn’t sleep great last night,’ she fibbed.

‘Are you going to Dublin for the eighth?’ Elizabeth queried, taking out her knitting.

‘I am. You didn’t want to go did you?’ Imelda’s heart sank. The thought of the annual Christmas shopping trip to Dublin, on the eighth of December, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception – or Culchie Christmas, as the Dubs called it – had been keeping her going. She was meeting up with Teresa in Clerys, and spending the night with her best friend at her home in Glasnevin.