"The Ghosts of Kilrush"

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Readers who purchase the book now directly from RavensYard through the pay pal facility on this website will be eligible for a substantial discount and can be assured that the book will be mailed to them first – hot off the press. Ghosts of Kilrush is the heart-felt memoir of a young English boy, abandoned by his father in small town in western Ireland, who was raised as a beloved son by an Irish family who treated him as their own. Joe Riley takes a look back at a dozen years after World War II as he affectionately recalls the world of Kilrush, County Clare, and it’s many colorful characters who influenced his childhood, including his Auntie May and Uncle Andrew DeLoughery, and their family, neighbors and friends. The stories about the many characters of the town will have the reader laughing out loud. The infamous Paddy Griffin, affectionately called “Pollock the liar” behind his back. John Joe and how he became a councilor. Paddy Hawes, the IRA barber who used the time cutting Riley’s hair to tell him the evils of being English. Contrasting these warm accounts is the story of his birth mother, whom Joe had not seen for six years, arriving for a visit and taking him ‘home’ to meet his other brothers and sisters. The horror he felt in their way of life compared to his and his happy return to Kilrush. This memoir is a tribute to Auntie May and Uncle Andrew, their family, and the community of Kilrush who all turned Joe Riley’s childhood from one of grim isolation into an experience of loving acceptance. This memoir was written as told to Alan C. Atkins, a friend of Joe Riley's in Manila, who is a professional writer and author</div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <A HREF="the_ghosts_of_kilrush_m.htm" TITLE="The Ghosts of Kilrush">Back to Top</A></div> <div> <B> <A NAME="returning_to_kilrush____35_years_on"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>Returning to Kilrush  - 35 years on</B></div> <bR> <div> The Eigse Mrs. Crotty Festival (Aug 13 to 17) will see the return of many natives to their home town of Kilrush. Few however will have been as long away or had as many adventures as Joe Riley, returning this year for the first time in 35 years, having initially emigrated 45 years ago (1958). </div> <bR> <div> <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#006699" FACE="Verdana" ><B><IMG SRC="86465800.jpg" border=0 width="101" height="128" ALIGN="LEFT" HSPACE="10" VSPACE="5"></B></FONT>Joe's story is even more interesting however to the people of Kilrush since the memoirs of his early years are soon to be published. <I><B>“The Ghosts of Kilrush”</B></I> is due to be released in time for Christmas 2003 and the book is dedicated to the generations that toiled through the 1940's and 50's, so that their current descendants could know success.</div> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <A HREF="the_ghosts_of_kilrush_m.htm" TITLE="The Ghosts of Kilrush">Back to Top</A></div> <div> Joe's story began with his arrival in Kilrush at the age of 3, little more than a toddler. A Geordie lad from the North East of England, he arrived with a foreign religion and a foreign accent; the accent of a nation from which Ireland had only recently disentangled itself after 800 years of conflict. These are the simplest details of the story. From that age onward, Joe's story details his abandonment by his father, his amazing welcome into the hearts of a new family in Kilrush, the eventual re-introduction to his original family and many twists and turns of his boyhood in the late 1940's and 1950's. Joe's amazing memory will allow the current generation to not only experience the town and its characters but also the language and life of the time, simpler and more brutal times in many ways, but also more wholesome in the sense of community and craic that prevailed. His book “<I><B>The Ghosts of Kilrush”</B></I> will be a trip of discovery for some and a trip down memory lane for others. </div> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <A HREF="the_ghosts_of_kilrush_m.htm" TITLE="The Ghosts of Kilrush">Back to Top</A></div> <div> But where did those years away take Joe and what is life like for him today? Today finds Joe as the Managing Director of an Information Technology Recruitment firm based in Manila, Philippines. Part of Joe's reason for being here is to extend the business service he already offers to many Irish and international firms in modern day Ireland. Quite a twist for a boy that left Ireland with nothing!</div> <bR> <div> Joe has not forgotten those early days however; the generosity and wisdom imparted to him by his adoptive family, the Delougherys. Near where he lives in Manila is the shanty town of Merville, where people live under whatever shelter they can pull together and every rainstorm brings the potential to render them homeless or dead. Each Christmas Joe gathers donations from friends and business associates around the world. During Christmas 2002 these funds fed close to 100 people for one whole week, showing them some of the joys of Christmas that Joe remembered in Kilrush. </div> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <A HREF="the_ghosts_of_kilrush_m.htm" TITLE="The Ghosts of Kilrush">Back to Top</A></div> <div> On leaving Kilrush at the age of fifteen Joe ended up in England, doing many odd jobs until being bitten with the music bug of the early 1960's. Joe played in many venues across England until exhaustion laid him low and caused him to set off on a new career in nursing. Joe rose through the ranks in the nursing profession and as Director of Nursing he managed projects in the Middle East and Australia, before entering into the IT recruitment business at the start of the 1990's. Having achieved success in Australia, Joe now runs a successful operation from Manila in the Philippines.</div> <bR> <div> How the book came to be is a story in itself involving Tom Collins, the great grandson of a Kilrush native now running a publishing firm in the US, Pat Cusack a native of Kilrush now based in Bray, Co. Wicklow and Joe himself in the Philippines (with assistance from Alan Atkins). These people, linked only by their Kilrush connection and the internet, have crafted and will deliver the book without ever meeting! This is a clear example of the power of the internet to render distances as immaterial.</div> <bR> <div> Joe is looking forward to reviving old friendships while in Kilrush.</div> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <A HREF="the_ghosts_of_kilrush_m.htm" TITLE="The Ghosts of Kilrush">Back to Top</A></div> <bR> <div> <B> <A NAME="you_can_track_progress_of_the_book_at"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>You can track progress of the book at Ravensyard Publishing:</B><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#006699" FACE="Verdana" > </FONT><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Verdana" ><A HREF="http://www.ravensyard.com/works_in_progress.asp " TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.ravensyard.com/works_in_progr"><U>http://www.ravensyard.com/works_in_progress.asp</U></A></FONT></div> <bR> <div> <B>Writer remembers Ghosts of Kilrush</B></div> <div> <U>Date Posted</U>: 7/22/2003 6:30:40 AM <U>Posted By</U>: ravensyard</div> <div> All of his life, Joe Riley believed he had a problem. He couldn’t understand his illogical anger, often directed to those around him who reciprocated his love. At home one windy night in Manila (Philippines), he had a dream. It was a dream that took him back fifty years, to his youth spent growing up in the small town of Kilrush, Co. Clare in Ireland. Upon waking, he sat thinking for many hours and decided that the root of his problem could lay somewhere in those years. He decided to mentally go back and write down what he could remember. Fortunately, Riley allows us all to accompany him on this mental trip, and meet up with the Ghosts of Kilrush.</div> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <A HREF="the_ghosts_of_kilrush_m.htm" TITLE="The Ghosts of Kilrush">Back to Top</A></div> <div> The memoir (ISBN 1-928928-13-7) by Joe Riley, as told to Alan Aikens, is in final editing stages now and will be published soon by RavensYard. </div> <bR> <div> The story starts with him, at the tender age of four, left with a loving Irish family by his English father who was purportedly just temporarily returning to England to visit his wife and other children for Christmas. It was to be many years before his father returned.</div> <bR> <div> Joe was gladly absorbed into the large family of the Deloughery’s. His lifetime love and affection for his Auntie May, the lady who treated him as her own, clearly shines through. The mutual love between him and her husband, Uncle Andrew is displayed in their times spent together. Uncle Andrew’s unusual trout fishing methods added to lessons in life that can only be passed on from those with the wisdom of age to the young. Who else could teach young Joe how to catch shark with a tambourine; spend hours in crafting a model yacht that splendidly sailed across the harbor? The mental pictures Riley draws of a kindly old man enjoying many hours with such a small boy, teaching him about life is pure joy.</div> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <A HREF="the_ghosts_of_kilrush_m.htm" TITLE="The Ghosts of Kilrush">Back to Top</A></div> <div> The memories of three of Auntie Mays working sons are set in detail. Each son so very different from the other. The memorable story of them all coming together to build the monument to St. Senan at the well named after him. How they never solicited a penny towards the cost, but contributed their own money. More importantly, how they and a few friends labored night after night as well as weekends in constructing it. The whole effort in memory of their brother Joseph, who had been murdered one St. Patrick’s day at that very spot.</div> <bR> <div> Not all of life was wonderful as Riley recites the horrors of being educated under the Christian Brothers. Even the Church is not spared as Joe describes how he became a Catholic using previously unknown fast-track methods. On Friday he was a Protestant, by Sunday lunchtime a full-blown Catholic.</div> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <A HREF="the_ghosts_of_kilrush_m.htm" TITLE="The Ghosts of Kilrush">Back to Top</A></div> <div> There are stories of the Deloughery family, such as Katie and her marriage to Johnny Enright, one vigorously opposed by Auntie May; the fairytale romance of Lulu marrying her Danish beau who sailed into the local port one day. The many characters of the town are described, and the stories about them will have the reader laughing out loud. The infamous Paddy Griffin, called “Pollock the liar” behind his back. John Joe and how he became a councilor. Paddy Hawes, the IRA barber who used the time cutting Riley’s hair to tell him the evils of being English.</div> <bR> <div> Contrasting this is the story of his birth mother, whom he had not seen for six years, arriving for a visit and taking him ‘home’ to meet his other brothers and sisters. The horror he felt in their way of life compared to his and his happy return to Kilrush.</div> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <A HREF="the_ghosts_of_kilrush_m.htm" TITLE="The Ghosts of Kilrush">Back to Top</A></div> <div> Explore with Riley nearby Scattery and Hog Islands; go fishing with him and the Deloughery boys and nearly get sunk by a huge pod of dolphins headed up the River Shannon. Every chapter is a delight, either amusing, educational or shocking, right up until the visit by his father and, once again, a short trip to England. This trip changes Riley’s life for every as he ponders just who he is. He feels like he has been a cuckoo living in the warm nest of Kilrush, but never belonging. He one day, sets off to find the solution not then knowing that the journey would take fifty years and the writing of this book, facing up to the Ghosts of Kilrush.</div> <bR> <div> <I>(public interest item from Patrick Cusack</I><A HREF="mailto:patricu@hotmail.com" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:patricu@hotmail.com"><I> </I></A><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Verdana" ><A HREF="mailto:patricu@hotmail.com" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:patricu@hotmail.com"><I><U>patricu@hotmail.com</U></I></A></FONT><I>)</I></div> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <A HREF="the_ghosts_of_kilrush_m.htm" TITLE="The Ghosts of Kilrush">Back to Top</A></div> <div> <B> <A NAME="visit_the_ghosts_of_kilrush_website"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><A HREF="ghosts_of_kilrush_website.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The Ghosts of Kilrush Website"><B>Visit The Ghosts of Kilrush website</B></A></div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> If you want to find our more, you can send Joe Riley an e-mail at:<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#006699" FACE="Verdana" > </FONT></div> <div> <B>Joe Riley </B></div> <div> <A HREF="mailto:blarney@i-manila.com.ph" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:blarney@i-manila.com.ph">blarney@i-manila.com.ph</A></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="the_ghosts_of_kilrush_m.htm" TITLE="The Ghosts of Kilrush">Back to Top</A></div> <bR> <div>   <script type="text/javascript" language="javascript">  </script> <script type="text/javascript" language="javascript" src="http://www.statcounter.com/counter/frames.js"> </script> <noscript> <a href="http://www.statcounter.com" target="_top"><img src="http://www.statcounter.com/counter.php?usr=westclare&java=0" alt="StatCounter - Free Web Tracker and Counter" border="0"/></a> </noscript>   </div> <bR> </td> <td valign="top" width=165 BGCOLOR="#006699" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <B>"The Ghosts of Kilrush"</B></div> <div> <B>By Joe Riley</B></div> <div> (ISBN 1-928928-13-7)</div> <bR> <div> <B>If you want to find our more, you can</B></div> <div> <B> e-mail  </B></div> <div> <B>Joe Riley </B></div> <div> <A HREF="mailto:blarney@i-manila.com.ph" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:blarney@i-manila.com.ph">blarney@i-manila.com.ph</A></div> <bR> <div> <I><B>Or contact:</B></I></div> <div> <I><B>Patrick Cusack</B></I><A HREF="mailto:patricu@hotmail.com" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:patricu@hotmail.com"><I><B> </B></I></A></div> <div> <A HREF="mailto:patricu@hotmail.com" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:patricu@hotmail.com"><I><U>patricu@hotmail.com</U></I></A></div> </td> </tr></table></body>