Today I have a marvellous guest post for you by author Kevin Doyle whose latest book, A River of Bodies was published in July and is the second in his Solidarity Books trilogy. First, here is a little about the book:
In this sequel to his impressive debut novel To Keep A Bird Singing,
Kevin Doyle delves further into the murky world of the powerful Donnelly family
and their association with the Catholic church and the security forces. The clock is ticking
as Noelie and his friends try to uncover the network of corruption and deception
that the family have used to protect themselves and their operations. But Albert
Donnelly is onto Noelie and there’s nothing
he won’t do to stop him.
Edgy, dark and sharp, Kevin Doyle’s A River of Bodies is a cracking political thriller – restless, brilliantly
plotted and topical.
Welcome to the blog, Kevin - over to you!
The Solidarity Books Trilogy
Back in eighties I was living in Douglas Street - a long,
narrow thoroughfare on Cork’s inner city south side. Today, Douglas Street is
home to Frank O’Connor House, the beautifully renovated Nano Nagle Place, as
well as a number of busy cafes, and pubs well-known for their live music.
However, in the early eighties, Douglas Street was attractive mainly because of
its proximity to the city centre and its surplus of low rent accommodation. It
was a quieter place with a friendly community of people living along and around
the street with connections to the area going back over many generations.
I had a small flat there and one weekend bad luck struck and
my entire collection of punk and New Wave records was robbed. I had an
extensive collection of 45s too but those weren’t taken. Some money and a
cheque book vanished – I was the treasurer of the university’s Socialist
Society at the time – as well as some other bits and pieces. Not long after the
break-in, the thief was caught – attempting to cash a cheque. The gardaí were
pleased by this but my records weren’t recovered. For a few weeks afterwards, I
combed the city’s second-hand record shops hoping to see some of my treasured
collection on sale but not one of the missing vinyls ever reappeared.
Decades later and at a very different stage in my life, the
fate of my records came back into my mind. By then I had two children and they
were attending the Cork Educate Together National School located on Grattan
Street in the Marsh area of Cork. I often dropped them to school and collected
them later. This involved walking through town and one shop of particular
interest was on Castle Street. Each week the display in the charity shop’s
window would change. One week it might feature antiquarian books and handbags,
the next week week hill walking equipment and toy trains.
I occasionally ventured in to see what was on offer. This
was the noughties and LPs were not yet back in fashion. There were boxes of
vinyl lying about on sale at giveaway prices and sometimes I checked these, a
bit absent-mindedly, but with an eye for any of the musical gems that I had
lost all those years ago. It was on one of those occasions that I wondered
about the idea of finding my record collection again and what that might feel
like. It would be strange and odd, right? And what if the entire collection
re-appeared intact? It never happened but I realised that I did have an idea
for how a story – probably set in Cork – could begin.
I had been writing short stories for some time. In 2010, one
of my stories, ‘Capricorn’, about an industrial school survivor who had gone to
the remote Pilbara region of Western Australia to live and recover was
published by Ciaran Carty in the New Irish Writing page of the Sunday Tribune.
Mary Johnson, partner of renowned Cork poet Patrick Galvin, had always taken an
interest in my work. I had got to know Mary and Patrick through the Munster
Literature Centre. I also worked with them in 1996 to host a series of events
in Cork to remember the sixtieth anniversary of the beginning of the Spanish
Civil War. When Mary Johnson read ‘Capricorn’ she pointed out to me that she
felt there was a bigger story, alluded to in the short story, waiting to be
told. I initially dismissed the idea but in fact she was correct, and in due
course my interest in the plight of those who suffered in the industrial
schools system was to become a key part of the Solidarity Books trilogy.
Another important element of the story is Special Branch. I
went to college in Cork towards the end of the seventies and became immersed in
left wing politics soon after. From the perspective of today it was a strange
time. As the seventies became the eighties, the North of Ireland was in turmoil
and there was already a spill over into the Republic. This was the era of the
Heavy Gang, a special Dublin based unit that it was alleged existed in the
gardaí – the Irish police – with the remit to extract confessions from
suspects. It was also the era of the Sallins Train robbery when a number of men
linked to the Irish Republican Socialist Party had false confessions beaten out
of them while being held in garda custody. Although Cork, relatively speaking,
felt like it was far away from the Troubles, there were rumours of IRA activity
in the county and along with that reports of Garda repression. The name of
Special Branch was often heard in relation to these rumours and back in those
days anyone involved in left-wing politics was careful about encountering any
members of the unit.
In To Keep A Bird Singing, the first book in the trilogy,
the main character, Noelie Sullivan has had one of those unwelcome encounters
with Branch. As a student he tangled with Denis Lynch, a former member of the
Heavy Gang who had transferred to Cork after the Heavy Gang’s disbandment.
Since arriving in Cork, Lynch’s career has blossomed so that, by the time To
Keep A Bird Singing opens (in 2010), Lynch has risen to a senior rank inside
the Cork gardaí. Noelie is bitter about the past and how he was mistreated.
When he learns that Special Branch and Lynch may have been involved in
something quite murky in the not too distance past, he is not surprised but he
is also wary. He knows it could lead to a lot of trouble for him if he were to
poke his nose in somewhere where it was not wanted.
The final theme in the Solidarity Books trilogy fell into place
relatively late in the day. I had already started writing when I attended a
requiem mass on Cork’s northside for a relation of a friend of mine. While
waiting with others outside the church doors for the service to end, I learned
that the deceased was not only a highly respected member of the Catholic church
in the area but was also under suspicion for child abuse. Allegations had been
made about him, but at the time of his death they remained unproven.
I was taken aback by what I learned that afternoon and
recall entering church to observe the service. The requiem mass was elaborate
and impressive. At least seven priests were in attendance and I later learned
that one of them had a senior rank inside the church.
That day I was left with quite a few questions. But one
thing that struck me and stayed with me was the ‘localness’ of what I had
witnessed. These crimes, which the deceased was alleged to have been involved
in, had taken place not that far away from where I had lived and grown up. The
other aspect that I was left thinking about was the statement that the church
was making: they were standing by one of their own and there was no doubting
that.
It is no secret that the Catholic Church has often known
about crimes of abuse and helped to cover them up, but that day the writer in
me saw another possibility to explore, a new and even more disturbing angle of
criminality. In time all these themes have merged into what is now the
Solidarity Books trilogy. Part two, A River of Bodies, was published this year.
Thanks for that, Kevin. It is great to find out more about the background to your writing!
About the Author
Kevin Doyle is from Cork and works as a writer and creative writing
teacher. He has been published in many literary journals, including
Stinging Fly, The Cork Review, Southwords and The Cúirt Journal. He is
the winner of a string of awards, including the Tipperary Short Story
Award (1998) – first; Over The Edge New Writer Of The Year – shortlist;
Hennessy Literary Awards(2011) – shortlist; Seán ÓFaoláin Prize(2013) –
runner-up; Michael McLaverty Short Story Award(2016) – winner. In 2018,
he published his first novel, To Keep A Bird Singing. He lives in Cork.
Thanks to Kevin Doyle, Blackstaff Press and Anne Cater of Random Things Tours for a place on the tour.
Folllow the rest of the tour!
Huge thanks for supporting the blog tour Pam xx
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