One of Ireland's most successful and best loved authors Alice Taylor will talk in Carrignavar next Tuesday as part of
Muintir na Tires Celebrating Age Week in East Cork. Alice Taylor who lives in the village of Innishannon worked as a telephonist in Killarney and Bandon. When she married, she moved to Innishannon where she ran a guesthouse at first, then the supermarket and post office. She and her husband, Gabriel Murphy, who sadly passed away in 2005, had four sons and one daughter. In 1984 she edited and published the first issue of Candlelight, a local magazine which has since appeared annually. In 1986 she published an illustrated collection of her own verse.
To School Through the Fields was published in May 1988. It was an immediate success, launching Alice on a series of signing sessions, talks and readings the length and breadth of Ireland. Her first radio interview, forty two minutes long on RTÉ Radio's Gay Byrne Show, was the most talked about radio programme of 1988, and her first television interview, of the same length, was the highlight of the year on RTÉ television's Late Late Show. Since then she has appeared on radio programmes such as Woman's Hour, Midweek and The Gloria Hunniford Show, and she has been the subject of major profiles in the Observer and the Mail on Sunday.
To School Through the Fields quickly became the biggest selling book ever published in Ireland, and her sequels,
Quench the Lamp, The Village, Country Days and The Night Before Christmas, were also outstandingly successful. Since their initial publication these books of memoirs have also been translated and sold internationally.
Alice has also written fiction: her first novel,
The Woman of the House, was an immediate bestseller in Ireland, topping the paperback fiction lists for many weeks and the saga continues in two further books.
One of Ireland's most popular authors, her most recent book is
Tea and Talk.
Places are strictly limited for Alice's talk in Carrignavar and are confined to those living in the Carrignavar, Whitechurch, Glenville and Watergrasshill area through your local Community Care, Active Age Group only.
For Whitechurch contact Jack O Keeffe.
For Carrignavar contact Gretta Cronin.
For Glenville contact Timmy Manley.
For Watergrasshill Contact Joan Cahill.
See below for a full calendar of Events During Celebrating Age Week East Cork