• Historical

    Diarmaid the Irishman @queenskeys #RLFblog #historical #romance

    Donegal Landscape
    Article by Beppie Harrison
    I came late to my love of Ireland
    and I can’t explain why Donegal spoke to me so insistently. Maybe it’s the way it’s said. You hear the rhythm of it: DONeegol, sort of
    wrapping your tongue around the last L. It’s stuck way out on the end of Ireland,
    as far west and north as you can go. It’s a land of peninsulas reaching out
    into the cold Atlantic. The largest one is Inishowen, and that’s where I chose
    to place the beginning of the second book of Diarmaid the Irishman, because it’s
    cold and harsh and has always demanded more from its inhabitants than they
    sometimes had to give. Not much grows there. There are the peat fields that
    gave the Irish there the material for their sweet-smelling peat fires to warm
    their houses—primitive huts for much of their history. The farther east you go
    the better the land becomes, and you can grow potatoes and oats. That’s what
    the ordinary people lived on, traditionally. Oat porridge cooked over a peat
    fire morning and evening, with potatoes for the main meal. Fish, sometimes, if
    they were lucky. “Kitchen,” the fish would be called. Anything extra
    from potatoes and porridge was kitchen. Sometimes a bit of meat—chicken,
    perhaps. Eggs would be a lovely luxury, but eggs were better sold for people
    who had no other way to earn coin.
    A hard place, but a beautiful one
    for those of us who don’t need to make a living out of

    the unwilling land.
    Spectacular cliffs soar out of the churning ocean, and then, all of a sudden, a
    sweep of a golden sand beach. Now tourism is coming to save Donegal, for those
    who like a gentle sun and don’t mind icy cold water. There are new roads which
    allow you to have a feeling for the land, the low peat fields and the small
    stretches of farmland, and there are old ones requiring nerves of steel and
    sharp attention as a narrow road winds treacherously around the cliffs with
    awe-inspiring views of the ocean battering rocks almost directly below.

    Then of course there are the
    people. In some places they cling to the old ways and even teach their babies
    to speak Irish. There are three areas of Gaeltacht in Donegal—designated areas
    within which Irish speakers predominate, although the use of Irish is
    inevitably dwindling, given the global reach of English. Donegal people are as
    Donegal people have always had to be, sturdy and stubborn and set in their
    ways. But Irish they still are, which is to say they love to talk in the warmth
    of their pubs and are, in their way, welcoming to strangers.
    The more I learned about Donegal,
    the more it seemed to be the perfect place to begin my story of Diarmaid
    MacGuinness as a dedicated Irish rebel, red-headed, in a secret organization,
    and determined to return the green and pleasant land of Ireland to Irish rule,
    in spite of his own inconvenient ties to the Anglo-Irish aristocracy. His
    mother had worked for them for years and, unknown to them, he had grown up in
    the Big House himself. Caught by unwilling trust, he was half drawn to those
    who should be his enemies and half determined to push them and all like them
    into the Irish Sea, back to England where they had come from.
    I love Donegal. But I will always
    be a visitor there. Unlike its people, I’ve never had to wrest a living from
    its stubborn soil, and so will always be an outsider. Perhaps it’s better that
    way.

    Image credit: Donegal landscape taken by Beppie’s husband
    in 2015

    About Diarmaid the Irishman

    It’s 1810. The English have a firm grip on Diarmaid’s
    beautiful green Ireland. But Diarmaid McGuiness is determined to make that grip
    impossible to maintain. In the first half of this two-volume combination (The
    Divided Heart) we meet the reckless, red-haired Irishman as he tries out his
    wings as a rebel to follow in his dead father’s footsteps. In the second half
    (The Defiant Heart) we find Diarmaid as the determined leader of rebels that he
    has become, and the equally fierce, equally red-headed girl whose resolve to
    free Ireland is as strong as his own. Their clash leads them into unforeseen
    complications and new ambiguous challenges.
    Genre Historical romance
    Author Beppie Harrison
    Book heat level (based on movie ratings): PG-13
    Publisher Camden Hill Press
    Amazon https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01CR6796M/

    About Beppie Harrison

    Beppie Harrison lives in Massachusetts with her English
    husband, two slightly addled cats, and an enthusiastic puppy. England with
    friends and family is a second home, Ireland a fascination that came later. She
    writes books placed in the Regency period, many of them in Ireland. The beauty
    of Ireland, its harshness, and the wonderfully garrulous people are close to
    her heart.