Ballylin: Memories of Life in a Small Irish Village

Joan Comiskey grew up in the house attached to her grandmother’s pub/grocery in a small rural village in southern Ireland in the 1930s. In this collection of sprightly-told, light-hearted, and seamlessly interwoven vignettes, she brings to life some of the special characters, places, events, and experiences in what the guidebooks of the time labeled an “insignificant” little town on the way to Dublin. Written in a style that captures the innocence, insights, and endurance of youth, the stories reveal the “specialness” in the mundane and the significance in the “insignificant,” touching, however subtly, heart, mind, and soul.