Last Summer in Ireland
Readers LOVE Anne Doughty:‘I love all the books from this author’‘beautifully written’‘would recommend to everyone’‘Fabulous story, couldn't put it down!’‘Looking forward to the next one.’Prepare to be spirited away to rural Ireland in this stunning new saga from Anne Doughty.
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ANNE DOUGHTY is the author of A Few Late Roses, which was nominated for the longlist of the Irish Times Literature Prizes. Born in Armagh, she was educated at Armagh Girls’ High School and Queen’s University, Belfast. She has since lived in Belfast with her husband.
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First published as Summer of the Hawthorn in 1999. This edition is published in Great Britain by HQ in 2019
Copyright © Anne Doughty 2019
Anne Doughty asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Ebook Edition © July 2019 ISBN: 9780008328825
‘This book was immensely readable, I just couldn’t put it down’
‘An adventure story which lifts the spirit’
‘I have read all of Anne’s books – I have thoroughly enjoyed each and every one of them’
‘Anne is a true wordsmith and manages to both excite the reader whilst transporting them to another time and another world entirely’
‘A true Irish classic’
‘Anne’s writing makes you care about each character, even the minor ones’
For all those who have cherished
hope for peace in Ireland
‘Do what you can, do it in love and be sure that it
will be more than you ever imagined.’
Deara, fifth century healer from Emain
Contents
ARMAGH, 1986
This morning, after the most ghastly ten minutes in Mother’s bedroom, I went to Emain. I just took off, as Sandy would say. And the moment I crossed the main road and set foot in the lane that weaves its way between the scatter of farms and strikes west to run along the foot of the great mound, I felt better, so much better I could hardly imagine the waves of nausea that almost overcame me the minute I’d pushed open her door.
I walked quickly, my eyes eagerly seeking out the familiar features, once the focus of my childhood imaginings: the oak where Robin Hood crouched ready to pounce on the Sheriff of Nottingham, the hazel bush whose fruit bestowed wisdom on those who partook of it, the twisted hawthorn beneath whose branches the little people danced on moonlit nights. Smiling to myself as the memories flooded back to me, I turned aside into McCreesh’s field and tramped through the rough grass by the hedgebank.
‘Oh wonderful,’ I said aloud, as I found the primroses, the patch I’d known for thirty of my thirty-five years. Last autumn the hedges had been brutally cut back by a machine that left the branches bruised and torn. I feared the primroses might have gone. But here they were in full flower, the pale leaves offering the faintest perfume to the morning sun as I bent to touch their soft petals.
The flutter and scuffle of birds followed me all the way down the lane. A blackbird was singing its heart out on the pointed gatepost of Toner’s farm. I glimpsed a wren, minute and secretive, hopping through the ground ivy at the foot of the hedgerow.
Had I not caught sight of a man perched on the low roof of a cottage painting the inside of the chimney stack, I would have danced for joy. I had been let out. I had escaped. From what I had escaped, or from where, I could not say, but the feeling of freedom buoyed me up like a following wind, my feet barely touched the ground as I sailed along the lane heading for the familiar green gate.
‘It’s because these are my hedgerows,’ I confided to a thrush, so absorbed in smashing a snailshell that he didn’t hear me coming. Other places were all very well. I could enjoy Hampstead Heath or St James’s Park, and Matthew’s home village in Norfolk was wonderful with those great skies arcing over the marshes and the heathlands. But this was my own place, this was part of me, and I had been lonely for it for so long.
