This week: memoirs from a freediving champion, and from a footballer who had a brain injury
This week there’s a memoir from a Navan man who suffered a brain injury while playing football as a teen and his life was changed forever.
There’s also a memoir from a freediving champion who informs the reader that learning how to breathe – and not breathe – taught her some valuable life lessons.
There’s a military history of our defence forces from the foundation of the state up to 2022 and there’s a remarkable novel about enduring friendship, with echoes of Douglas Stewart’s Booker prizewinning Shuggie Bain, from the author of Montpelier Parade.
And a Bang on the Ear, Phil Quinlan, O’Brien Press, €17.99
On 26th November 1989, young Phil Quinlan’s life was changed forever. He was 15 years old then, a keen athlete and footballer. A minor league soccer match resulted in an accidental collision of heads that left Phil fighting for his life.
After a six-week coma, he regained consciousness but was left physically compromised. Initially paralysed down one side, after years of therapy and treatment, he still limps (or ‘wobbles’ as he puts it!) and he says he ‘looks disabled’.
But he has the heart of a lion and although life has been difficult and his sporting dreams were shattered, he has extensively travelled and worked in various positions around the world.
Navan man Phil’s story is woven with perspectives from others, family relatives and friends, so the narrative is non-linear, keeping the reader engaged throughout. Steve O’Rourke, as ghost writer, has captured the consistency in Quinlan’s voice and sense of humour that is persistent and authentic.
Phil currently works as an SNA with severely compromised kids and he really feels he’s found his calling. This is a highly recommended, life-affirming story of a giant among men.
Under Water, Claire Walsh, Gill, €18.99
Free diving is a form of underwater diving where no breathing apparatus is used and the diver is completely reliant on holding their own breath. Claire Walsh is a competitive free diver, swims all year round and trains people in breathwork techniques, not just for diving, but for singing and general wellbeing.
She can hold her breath for… wait for it!… five minutes and 59 seconds. Unimaginable.
This sport has the reputation of being the most dangerous of all and Claire has represented Ireland in the world championships. In her prologue she describes the activity as an ‘extreme sport of relaxation’. She dives to depths of 60 metres, which is the height of Liberty Hall.
While she is living her best life these days, this wasn’t always the case and in her late 20s, she endured crippling anxiety and depression, often feeling guilty that her loved ones simply couldn’t reach her.
While travelling around South America, she discovered free diving in Honduras and has not looked back. This memoir is bound to get other people interested in the sport of free diving and is a candid recollection of the ups and downs of Claire Walsh’s life.
Juno Loves Legs, Karl Geary, Harvill Secker, €15.99
This beautifully wrought novel follows the platonic friendship between Juno and ‘Legs’ (real name Sean), living in the less salubrious streets of south County Dublin and attending the local school, sometime in the late '70s.
Legs is severely bullied for being gay, while Juno is a not-to-be-messed-with firebrand. Instant friends, they form a bond from primary school onwards. After a horrific incident involving the parish priest, Legs is sent off to reform school and it will be years before Juno sees him again.
During those years Juno’s mother dies, leaving her with her brutish, work-shy, alcoholic father. Juno runs away and is living on the streets when Legs finally finds her. They set up house in a squat and things are at last looking hopeful.
Hardship and neglect have not yet broken these youngsters but when it becomes obvious that Legs’ health is waning, everything changes. Like Douglas Stuart, Karl Geary writes fiction set in urban wastelands, in a society that’s impossible to rise up from, where the cards are stacked against kids from the get-go.
As much a social commentary on Ireland in the ’70s and ’80s as it is a work of fiction, the poverty here, material and every other kind, is practically Dickensian. But it’s also wholly authentic.
The novel is a tragedy, and yet it’s full wit and vim, but it’s the elegance of this author’s pen that is truly staggering here. To create a work of such intense beauty from the ugliest and most deprived of backdrops is a huge feat. Don’t miss it.
The Irish Defence Forces 1922-2022, Eoin Kinsella Four Courts Press €30
It’s a mammoth task, this, charting the history of Ireland’s defence forces for their first 100 years within this decade of state commemorations. Historians will be enthralled. Serving and retired military men will be equally impressed, though there’s not so much about the military women. Kinsella traces the roots of our defence forces from their revolutionary roots through to 2022, marking the challenges and the triumphs.
Like the garda, who modelled their structure on the Peelers, the new army of the infant state modelled its structure on that of the British army and did not always behave honourably in the years of the Civil War, earning themselves the nickname of the ‘Green and Tans’.
But in the later decades of the 20th century, Irish soldiers were highly respected in their UN peacekeeping stations. There is, however, not much space given either to the role of women in the military or to the bullying and abuse scandals uncovered in recent years.
That aside, it’s a gorgeously packaged tome, massively researched and teeming with illustrations, a real labour of love and of special interest to history fans.
FOOTNOTES
Writers, would you be interested in travelling into Dublin city centre to complete your project in a quiet, light-filled, historic and very bookish space? The Museum of Literature Ireland (MoLI) are offering the daily use of a writing room, free of charge, to successful applicants for a maximum of three months. See moli.ie for details.
Hot on the heels the sensational launch of Phil Quinlan’s book in Eason, Navan, last month, another Navan writer has just had her debut novel published. Anne Tiernan, who has a very famous brother, is the author of The Last Days of Joy, published by Hachette and already receiving promising reviews. I’ll be reviewing it here next week.