I'm reading the books I have on Northern Ireland, right now...whenever I'm not doing the usual writer avoidance thing, like shredding old papers and making potato soup...and I counted the number of books I have left to peruse. I'll be reading the rest of my life.
I've gone through 21, so far, not including rereads of Sister Kate and Reflections of Derry, and I'm a bit frazzled and still overwhelmed at the task I was chosen to do. Brendan's family has expanded, thanks to this. No additional brothers and sisters, but I'd had his father being an unknown entity from Belfast about whose past no one knew anything much. All very mysterious and movie-like...and total bullshit.
He'd have family from his Da's side and from his Mother's...and I also need to find out when mothers started being referred to by Mammy instead of Ma. That's the term used on the messages dealing with the images posted on Derry of the Past, and it reminds me of Al Jolsen and his blackface routine. It's disconcerting.
Irish families spread out through several levels in this town, from aunts and uncles and grandparents and cousins and marriages and close living quarters. That's half the reason they survived -- lending here, borrowing there, finding a hundred ways to make use of something before it's tossed aside. It's amazing. I had Brendan's family pretty much on their own and that is NOT how it would have worked.
I'm still looking for images of the insides of homes like those on Nailors Row, though I've a decent enough description of them, I suppose. But I'm a visual person and like the image to help settle it in my mind. Like this one.
This was Lundy's Lane, across from the Gasworks. It's now a small park with stairs up it and a memorial, and the Gasworks is a community center. I walked up here when I was in Derry, not knowing this; I just wanted to see what the memorial was for. I'll have to dig through my photos to find it and post it, later. Show some comparisons.
And keep working at building my own map...
I've gone through 21, so far, not including rereads of Sister Kate and Reflections of Derry, and I'm a bit frazzled and still overwhelmed at the task I was chosen to do. Brendan's family has expanded, thanks to this. No additional brothers and sisters, but I'd had his father being an unknown entity from Belfast about whose past no one knew anything much. All very mysterious and movie-like...and total bullshit.
He'd have family from his Da's side and from his Mother's...and I also need to find out when mothers started being referred to by Mammy instead of Ma. That's the term used on the messages dealing with the images posted on Derry of the Past, and it reminds me of Al Jolsen and his blackface routine. It's disconcerting.
Irish families spread out through several levels in this town, from aunts and uncles and grandparents and cousins and marriages and close living quarters. That's half the reason they survived -- lending here, borrowing there, finding a hundred ways to make use of something before it's tossed aside. It's amazing. I had Brendan's family pretty much on their own and that is NOT how it would have worked.
I'm still looking for images of the insides of homes like those on Nailors Row, though I've a decent enough description of them, I suppose. But I'm a visual person and like the image to help settle it in my mind. Like this one.
And keep working at building my own map...
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