I owe sincere gratitude to the late Charles Haughey for his time, understanding, stories and the photograph of the red deer.
I am also most grateful to Maria Simonds-Gooding and to Larry Slattery for sharing their stories.
I am very grateful to Mai Fennelly, my mother, for her support and wonderful child-minding and to Seán Fogarty and Ray Heverin for their help with my trying computer skills.
Also many thanks to Ruth Byrne, Brian Coates, Kevin Collins, Paul Deavy, Jon Donovan, Maírín Jackson, Suzanne Kennedy, Pat Lee, Simon McAleese, Joe Malone, Karen Marsh, Patricia Murphy, Michael O’Meara, Karen O’Reilly, Des O’Sullivan, Kevin Power, Mary Shannon, Michael Shiel, Father Billy Swan, Karen Weekes, Ian Wright and my agent, Jonathan Williams.
First published in 2009 by
The Collins Press
West Link Park
Doughcloyne
Wilton
Cork
© Anita Fennelly 2009
Anita Fennelly has asserted her moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
All rights reserved. The material in this publication is protected by copyright law. Except as may be permitted by law, no part of the material may be reproduced (including by storage in a retrieval system) or transmitted in any form or by any means, adapted, rented or lent without the written permission of the copyright owners. Applications for permissions should be addressed to the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Fennelly, Anita
Blasket spirit
1. Fennelly, Anita 2. Spiritual retreats - Ireland - Great Blasket Island 3. Great Blasket Island (Ireland)-Description and travel
I. Title
914.1’96
ISBN-13: 9781905172900
PDF eBook ISBN: 9781848890749
EPUB eBook ISBN: 9781848890756
Typesetting by The Collins Press
Typeset in Bembo 11 on 14 pt
Photographs of author sitting outside Ray Stagles’ cowshed and a rainbow across Blasket Sound courtesy of Sigrid Gräser; photograph of red deer courtesy of Charles Haughey.
Blasket Spirit Page 19