Review: An Irish Country Yuletide

An Irish Country Yuletide by Patrick Taylor
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I've had this book for almost a year but just did not want to read it because Patrick Taylor is not continuing the series. Having read them all, it was hard to face the end of the series. His reasoning is sound--Ballybucklebo is a wonderful country village in which there is no Catholic/Protestant strife. Indeed, the Catholic priest and Presbyterian minister can be found at each other's services at times and they play golf together on Mondays. It is a place with normal gossip, sometimes neighborly disagreements but more often than not a place in which everyone is willing to help and support each other whenever illness, sadness or financial struggles appear.

There is also the wheels of time in which people die, others marry, sometimes romances bomb, and babies are born. The inhabitants are true individuals with three-dimensional development and the reader loves, admires, dislikes, laughs at and laughs with many of them. Dr Fingal Flahertie O'Reilly is the initial focus of the series and we see him as a medical student,a young naval officer, a new husband, a heart-breakingly devastated widower, and a happy man with a woman who was a love of his younger self who becomes his second wife. In the process, he becomes the doctor in Ballybucklebo living at #1 with is dog, kitten and housekeeper, Kinky. She is wonderful--a widow from Cork who keeps him in line cooks incredible meals. In time, she too, gets married but continues taking care of him and his young assistant, Barry Laverty. And, too, we watch Barry mature, adjust to life in a small town, marry, buy a home, have a child and become a partner in the practice.

As you can see, the reader becomes a resident and over 20 to 25 years becomes a member of the fabric and family. So difficult to leave. Yet, as said earlier, Taylor picked a good time to end the story for he did not want to delve into the troubles that raged in Ireland. He did not want to bring them to Ballybucklebo and it could not have been avoided so he ended the stories.

This Yuletide book sat on the table and finally, reluctantly, at this Yuletide I picked it up to read and say goodbye. It is set in 1965--after some books in the series and before some others. Because of this I gave it only 4 stars. Perhaps it deserves 5 since having read the whole series I felt as though, like Kinky, I had the sight--I am fey--I could see into the future of some characters. For example, Fingle's brother, Lars, meets the sister of the Marquis, John MacNeill, for the first time at the O'Reilly's Christmas evening gathering. But, I know what happens to Lars and Myrna in the future--lol



View all my reviews