I begin my new novel (again)

I’ve relaxed, in the middle of Ireland. 

I’m in a town called Roscrea. I chose it because it’s as close as I could find any accommodation to tiny Dunkerrin, where my ancestors, Jeremiah and Mary Mortimer, died and are buried.

I know: Jeremiah Mortimer sounds like an old codger in The Simpsons. I can’t help that.

His son, who came to the South Pacific and sired a hell of a lot of people, was called Darby. By the way, the name “Darby” is a fairly common Irish first name. Sean Connery plays a Darby in his first film, Darby and the Little People. You should see it because there’s a bit where Connery has to sing: comedy gold! Anyway, the name Darby is a sort of slang version of Jeremiah, like Jack is a slang version of John.

House of Mortimer (somewhere here, about six feet under this ground)

Anyway, Jeremiah and Mary couldn’t have afforded a headstone, so they’d have had a wooden cross at best. That’s long gone. I’d hoped to buy a mess of poitin, and pour some on the grave, one way or the other. But that was not to be. 

But here’s a picture of the last resting place of the Mortimers who didn’t go to the South Pacific and become my ancestors. 

There’s not much in Dunkerrin, though the churchyard is pretty. But I’ve been looking about the town of Roscrea, which unexpectedly turns out to have structures that were built in the tenth century, to keep Vikings away, and in the twelfth century when the Normans, having conquered England, decided to invade and occupy Ireland too. So: history! It’s all over the place here. 

For example, this is literally the view from the window of my hotel room. It’s a Norman castle, twelfth century, That house in the middle, clashing with everything around it, was built in the eighteenth century by a family who got rich occupying Ireland when Oliver Cromwell went over and did his bit.

Cromwell’s bit for Ireland consisted of burning, murdering, raping, smashing and looting. Ah well, it’s a lovely house, truth to tell, but on style grounds, if nothing else, it really, really doesn’t belong in the middle of the ruins of a Norman castle. 

Anyway, I’ve got peace of mind at the moment, and there’s a historical novel I finished a few years ago. Then I realised it has too many characters, and its climactic scene is in the middle, and it should be at the end. It needs serious repair. But I got taken up by other, more immediate, projects, including two other novels and a non-fiction book, and I shelved the flawed historical novel. Now I’m taking it off the shelf, with a fresh mind. 

It’ll be about 350 pages, and it doesn’t contain a single spanking or other bdsm scene whatsoever. I think there’ll only be two significant sex scenes of any kind, so I’m afraid my readers will have to settle for a good story, some historical scandal (accidentally discovered by me, when researching something completely different!) that will still create some uproar, some scenes of horror of the human, not supernatural, kind, and some laughs. 

So if anyone needs me, I’ll be tapping my keyboard in the bar of The White House, Roscrea. I’ll be drinkin’ Guinness, and if you pop by I’ll be buyin’.

6 thoughts on “I begin my new novel (again)

  1. Fascinating! Love all the historical bits which are clearly making u feel it is ‘right’ to get this story down – I too get assurance from ‘messages’ from the universe like that! Keep going!

  2. Yes are old man Oliver Cromwell was a very busy man. But not much of a architectural history more blood and guts sort of a guy ☺

  3. There was a music hall song, sung by Marie Lloyd in the later half of her career. The chorus went:
    “I’m one of the ruins that Cromwell knocked about a bit (bout a bit).”

    He was known for the property destruction, as well as murder and such. If you had Oliver Cromwell over for dinner, he wouldn’t stop at just shooting your dad and stabbing your mum. He’d make sure to smash the furniture before he left.

    He was succeeded by his son Richard, so he didn’t exactly oppose monarchy itself, just monarchies that he and his family weren’t at the head of.

    (Marie Lloyd was the darlin’ of London, in music hall days. I’ve only ever seen a picture of her young, looking pretty damn appealing in tights. So I find it hard to think of her being older, but well, with time I’ll get used to it.)

  4. Old iron sides was a very good cavalry officer along with John lilburn . But not some one you would invite to dinner if you aren’t a puritan . But he did invent the modem army as we know it . He’d probably get them to burn your house down after dinner good old Cromwell ☺

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