Like most writers I know, I love research. There’s nothing quite like being there, and that lesson was drilled home in September of 2024 when I spent a month traveling Ireland for my work in progress. It was to be the fourth book in my County Kerry series and I just didn’t have my finger on the pulse of the story. My last trip had been in the fall of 2019, and the pantser in me had a Field of Dreams moment whispering: “If you visit, the plot will come.”
Kindness of Strangers
Flying into Shannon, my first stop was Kilmallock, County Limerick, the first Irish town I ever visited with a boyfriend who had grown up there. It was during that trip I learned that you could fall in love with a town. (He grew up with a town castle and I grew up with a White Castle). I turned my jealousy around by basing my first series set in Ireland in this charming medieval town. This time around, it was a somber return. The boyfriend, who I had remained friends with long after our break-up, had suffered some medical issues and was now home under these unfortunate circumstances, the town itself was experiencing a downturn—they used to have a plethora of pubs but most of them had shut down, and the last time I was there had been with my father who had since passed away. Luckily, I was about to find a sense of renewal in the kindness of strangers.
I stayed in Bruree, a village near Kilmallock. My friend Ann from New York City had a cabin built on her sister’s property for her retirement. The little home was adorable, and everywhere I looked, from her shampoos to her pottery barn leather sofa to her walk-in-closet, I felt as if she were right there with me. I had heard about her sister Marie for the past decade, but I had never met her. That didn’t stop Marie from treating me like family, having me over for breakfast—with eggs delivered by her neighbor specifically for my arrival, and if that wasn’t enough, she would drive me to and from Kilmallock since I was traveling without a car. Then, another three friends of Marie and Ann descended on the cabin one night with wine, appetizers, and whiskey to welcome me. I honestly cannot imagine this scenario playing out anywhere else. I was then invited to dinner at Ann’s mother’s house, and once again I was treated like a member of the family. Ann was calling me frequently from NYC to see how I was getting on.
Crying in the Eurospar
I’m not a big crier. When I do cry, it tends to be when I’m under a lot of stress. After Kilmallock and Bruree, I took two buses to get to Skibereen in West Cork. Unfortunately, in my travel experiences in Ireland, as uber-friendly as most Irish people are, bus drivers are the exception. I’ve always found them to be cranky and this trip was no exception. So I was tired and a bit down by the time I arrived, and I also had too much water without any stops and needed a restroom. Dragging two suitcases, I made a beeline for the first gas station/market but they refused to let me use it. Luckily, the Eurostar supermarket across the way was more hospitable. I was staying at a B&B in Castle Townshend, in West Cork, a bit further outside of Skibbereen than I realized, so I needed to get a taxi. But by the time I called three taxi companies and they all said they were too busy, I broke down in tears. Two of the employees, took pity on me and found me a taxi—and even though I had to wait forty minutes for it, the relief was palpable. The female taxi driver said she could continue to drive me during my time in West Cork and gave me her number. The B&B was across from the ocean and the woman who ran it was delightful. She even hooked me up with a night bioluminescence swim the next evening.
Night swimming
I had never experienced the phenomenon of bioluminescence, nor had I ever swam in the ocean at midnight– and ditto for putting on a wet suit. The guide told stories around a fire before we took to the water. The sparkles in the water were magical, like a trail of diamonds, or Disney Fairies waving their wands, but I must admit I was more taken by the sky full of stars overhead. It had been since childhood that I had gazed upon a dark sky so littered with stars, and doing it while bobbing in the ocean was a balm for my soul.
Meeting Fidelus Foley
My County Kerry series takes place on the Dingle Peninsula on Ireland’s Southwest coast (The Wild Atlantic Way), but it can be difficult to get lodging in Dingle town at certain times of the year, and that September was one of them. Instead, I booked a room about thirty minutes outside of Dingle, above a pub in Inch, which was walking distance from Inch Beach. Completely by chance (although maybe nudged by the Universe) it was there at Foley’s Inn and Pub that I met Fidelus Foley. Her husband’s family had owned Foley’s Inn and Pub for seven generations. She liked writers so we clicked immediately. She would sit and have breakfast with me and talk about the other writers who had stayed at the inn. In particular she talked about one Irish writer who came to mourn the passing of his mother. He would walk on Inch Beach every day and he said for the first time since she passed, walking that beach, he could feel her presence. “Don’t worry,” she said. “The ghosts of Inch Beach will find you.” The phrase stayed in my mind, and bits of the plot began taking shape. I even asked Fidelus if I could use her name and the name of the pub in my book—(I was in love with her name), and happily, she said yes. And the ghosts of Inch Beach did indeed find me, as it was here that my story started taking shape.
Tour of the Dingle Peninsula
I took a van tour of the peninsula by a local named Rory. There were ten of us, and the trip started off with the usual “What do you do?” from the other passengers. When I said “I write murder mysteries set in Ireland”, one woman said: “You didn’t write Murder in an Irish Pub did you?” I said yes and asked if she had read it. She said—“Not yet but I was just at Murphy’s Pub in Dingle and they had it sitting on their shelf, facing out. I was just asking them about it. They joked and said they thought it was based on them.” (Funnily enough it’s not the series based in Dingle). It was the highlight of my trip to go into Murphy’s Pub afterward and sign the book. They even gave me a free t-shirt. Cheers, Murphy’s!
Kilkenny and Connections
Kilkenny was my stop after Cobh, and I already knew it was going to feature prominently in the book. My ex’s sister, had a friend she roomed with in NYC who now lived in Germany, and she had a cousin in Kilkenny. You with me? Not only did this friend ask her cousin to show me around Kilkenny, she also arranged for a local radio station to interview me. I learned later, that she did all of this while battling terminal cancer in bed. She has since passed, and I will never forget her kindness. And the cousin in Kilkenny was cut from the same cloth, for she was an excellent tour guide. One of the locations I was dying to see was an old psychiatric hospital that would be a centerpiece of my mystery, Come Through Your Door. I thought maybe we could just drive by it, but my local guide pulled in and we toured the grounds, and the building. I learned it had closed as a psychiatric hospital in 2006 and was now used as offices by HSE—Health Services Ireland. We did step into the building—I felt a bit like a teenager sneaking in—but we respectfully only toured a bit inside. It was really the outside that captured me. A three-story, dark limestone Elizabethan building flanked by watch towers. Behind the building sat a chapel, and a newer, 20-bed psychiatric facility that was currently in use, and this knowledge finally started putting the rest of the pieces of my mystery together. I was also able to walk the path one of my character takes on her way to work.
In conclusion
For me, character is plot. And when traveling Ireland, don’t get me wrong, I love the castles, and ruined abbeys, and pubs, and shops, and cliffs, and oceans, and rolling green hills, and live trad music. But by far, like fiction, it’s the that stay with me, that make me want to return again and again. Besides taking notes, I didn’t write a lick on that trip, but I came home and the muse came with me, and at last the story flowed. I could see it, taste, it touch it, feel it. And to me, that’s no mystery, it’s what this craft is all about. Now, whenever I’m stuck, I imagine I’m back in Ireland, buoyed by the kindness of strangers, and I’m reminded that I’m never alone, because when all else fails, walking right beside me are the ghosts of Inch Beach.
***
