Kinky--An Irish Country Girl

An Irish Country Girl by Patrick Taylor
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Although I started this series with a giveaway ages ago for a book midway through, and loved it, the series really is far more enjoyable starting at the beginning. The story of the main character, Dr Fingal Flahertie O'Reilly and the village of Ballybucklebo with its various inhabitants, human and otherwise is simply a delight and builds from the first onward. This fourth book is a bit of departure, in that it focuses on the life of Dr O'Reilly's housekeeper, Kinky. Patrick Taylor, himself a doctor who hails from Ireland, brings the reader into Irish life of the 60's and medical life with ease. So, it comes as no surprise that he is able to keep this story closely aligned with the book that came before, which ends as Dr O'Reilly, his lady friend, Kitty and his assistant, Dr Laverty, return home to the Christmas dinner that Kinky is preparing throughout this book as she goes back in time to her days as a mid-teen girl in a family of two sisters and two brothers. We see Maureen O'Halloran, as a student and progressive young woman, who wishes to finish her education and become a teacher. She wants to marry but is in no hurry and hopes that when she does she will be able to continue teaching. We are transported back to the late 20's to a farm in Cork, where Irish folklore and belief in fairies is alive and well. Kinky tells the local children a story of the Saint Stephen's Day Ghost. When the children leave, we find that Maureen's sister was in love with Connor MacTaggart who crossed the dark fairies and was never allowed to rest--playing ghostly pipes and appearing to Maureen as a filmy spectre, unseen by the rest of the family, but her Ma. We meet Paudeen Kinkade the man Kinky met and married and we learn how it is that she now is widowed all these years later and working as a housekeeper, far from her ould home in Cork.
After this story, though Kinky is the nickname given her by Paudeen, in my mind's eye there will always be a shadow of Maureen OHalloran lurking behind Kinky in future visits to Ballybucklebo.

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