In 1904 Ruby May is a children’s nurse (we learn it is an occupation that should never be confused with the lesser  “nursemaid”) and is employed by the prestigious Norland Institute in London. After being unable to travel with her present family to America, she is reassigned to Hardcastle House in the wilds of Yorkshire to look after the four children of mill-owner, Charles England.
 
His wife, Lilian, the Mrs England of the title, is distant, detached and forgetful. She spends most of her time in her rooms, takes a lot of baths and shows scant interest in her children or the staff. There is no housekeeper and it is her husband who makes the decisions about the running of the household which Ruby finds most unusual, including his insistence that the children be locked into the nursery at night.
 
Ruby is puzzled by Mrs England’s odd behaviour and through her growing affectionate relationship with the children, her friendship with the tutor and other individuals such as the blacksmith Sheldrake, Ruby slowly peels back the layers of the truth. The narrative is interspersed with flashbacks in Ruby’s own life which also gradually reveal her own secrets.
 
Apart from having the main character a nurse rather than the ubiquitous governess, this has many of the classic elements of every gothic story that features a grand house with dysfunctional rich family and the usual array of brooding men, disgruntled servants, secret liaisons, missing letters and locked doors. It’s Jane Eyre meets Rebecca complemented with a dash of Downton Abbey, the Yorkshire glooms as per Wuthering Heights and much gas-lighting - in both the illuminative and psychological senses.
 
The writing, descriptions and historical detail are fine and although it is true to the Edwardian era there is the odd modernism or anachronism in dialogue that occasionally leaps out *. However, the penultimate paragraph is a gem and may make you re-evaluate everything you have taken to be true in the story.

I enjoyed it well enough while reading it, but perhaps I've read too many similar books and it didn’t quite do as much for me as it seems to have done for the majority of reviewers elsewhere.
 
Three stars.


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* If someone can prove to me that toasting marshmallows on forks over fires was common practice in mid-late 19th Century Australia - as opposed to America - then I stand corrected. 

Celebrity memoirs are not normally high on my reading list, but this one was recommended to me and I have been delighted with the discovery. The book isn't an autobiography, rather a random selection of vignettes and memories and in no particular chronological order.

It dips in and out of Byrne's rough Dublin childhood and early years of struggles; darts off to a Hollywood system that bemused and baffled him; alludes to serious episodes involving clerical abuse when he was in a seminary, yet skirts around utter condemnation, and is frank about his battles with alcoholism, his family's foibles and sister's mental health issues.

It has laugh-out-loud moments involving discovering God and religious education with the nuns (reminds me of that other irreverent Irishman, Dave Allen) and his early Hollywood fumbles in his first big blockbuster movie, including faking love-making to a pink pillow while dressed in a full suit of armour. Meeting his idols Richard Burton and Laurence Olivier have a poignancy all their own.

This extract celebrates Byrne's first stage appearance as a shepherd with cotton wool beard in a school nativity play:-

"Goose Gavin with jug-handle ears and a big, red face landed the role of St. Joseph. Burkey, who had fleas that jumped out from under his collar, was Mary, dressed in a blue curtain. The baby Jesus was a rubber doll. There were angels and wise men who came from the East with nice presents.
The Virgin Mary said to the wise men:
---- Youse shouldn't have gone to all that trouble, youse --
---- Not YOUSE!!! the nun shouted. Youse is what common people say. The holy family aren't from the tenements.

[further description and dialogue referencing the wise men, the twins who made up the donkey plus the angel, who is discreetly unnamed.]

I have bad news, the angel said and looked at me strangely. I glanced down and saw piss coming like a snake from the angel toward me, then flowing under my shepherd's sandals. There is an evil king  who's going to kill all the little babies in Israel, so baby Jesus, Mary, and Joseph have to fly into Egypt. 
So, the holy family put the  rubber doll on the donkey's back and Goose Gavin said
---- Thanks for everything. Goodbye now."

Contrasted with these other frank excerpts:-

"I struggle with authenticity. Being truthful. Both to myself first and to other people.
Is it possible to be completely honest with myself? To admit my fears, my demons, prejudices, the petty envies, the unfulfilled desires? I want to live an authentic life. To take off the mask requires courage. I admit my fragility, my vulnerability and weakness."
​...

I am by nature an introvert. For a long time I was ashamed of this. As if it were somehow a moral failing ... I can be sociable too. But it drains me of energy and I have to find refuge in solitude again."

This is a short volume, less than 200 pages, but is packed with wit, humanity, lyricism, introspection, joy and loads of Irish charm. Gabriel Byrne might have never quite achieved superstar status, but will be a familiar face to many from stage, TV and film. When or if he retires from acting, he has all the makings of an excellent author.

Five stars.

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The Irish Famine of the 1840s is still one of the most disgraceful events in British history: a time when the potato crop failed due to blight and countless thousands of people were evicted from their tenancies, became destitute and starved. The government in London either ignored the issue or mishandled it to such an extent that some estimates state a million people died while at least another million were forced to emigrate. 

With this background, one only takes up any book about the Famine with caution, knowing full well you are going to face some distressing scenes. And this is certainly the case with this novel although the author manages to balance the most harrowing episodes with the human need to help others and the importance of family strength.

Principally set in and around the town of Skibbereen in County Cork, Mary and John Sullivan and their four children are faced with the many challenges that come their way after their potato harvest fails. ​When they are evicted from their cottage for being unable to pay rent, John labours on hare-brained government employment schemes in shocking conditions, for irregular and poor pay. Mary brings in a few pennies with her needlework. Malnourished and with having to pawn or sell their warm clothes, sickness is ever present.

Trying to do what he can for everyone is the remarkable, selfless doctor Dan Donovan who is the Medical Officer for the Skibbereen Union Workhouse and risks his own health with long working hours. Burying children whom he helped to deliver only to witness them dying from disease, exposure and hunger tears him apart. Father John Fitzpatrick pleads for help with higher authorities but is too often dismissed or ignored.

The writing is uncomplicated and the narrative flows well. Some reviewers have commented on its simplicity or the lack of in-depth characterisations which I think is rather unfair. Expressions of individuality in such a major crisis don't need analytical exploration. Trying to survive, being united and putting others first is what this novel is all about and although there are many shocking and tear-jerking passages, there is also courage, hope and determination to get through which ultimately adds to a satisfying story. (The author's notes reveal that much of the background is based in truth taken from the diaries of the real Dr Donovan.)
​

Four stars

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