Local author pens debut novel

Veronica Molloy writes of plight of religious women

Local author Veronica Molloy will launch her debut novel 'All I Cannot Save' at the Lakeside Hotel in Ballina on Friday, December 6.

Veronica will be known to many as a teacher at St Mary's in Nenagh and later, at St Anne's Community College, Killaloe. She has written an unflinching narrative set in the heart of mid 1900s Ireland, telling of a woman, Mary O'Brien, whose journey from family farm to convent becomes an epic quest for truth.

Veronica explains: The title of this book, 'All I Cannot Save' comes from a poem called 'Grandmothers' by the American poet, Adrienne Riche. A grandmother is a mature woman. It is about facing devastation; about those experiences we have which leave us standing in a ruined landscape.

It is about the realisation that we can only face and overcome what confronts us when we come to know ourselves and face the truth of the situation we are in. Difficult experiences are often the door to that. This is a central theme in the book.

The other is giving a voice to those currently silenced in our justifiably angry, yet fractured response to the abuses of our past. Religious women have traditionally been kept in the shadows of the institutional church. We are all aware of the powerful reverend mother, the woman who ran the hospital or the school like a tight ship, but there are many women behind her whose voices we seldom heard and who we do not hear at all today. Yet it is a story of humanity, survival, compassion and redemption.

The central character is Mary O’Brien. Mary is the daughter of a typical rural farming family of the early to mid C20th century. The significant events of this story take place from the 1950s-70s Ireland, yet the story closes in the current day with the recollections of the mature woman Mary, now Sr Cecilia, has become.

BECOMING A NUN

Shy of her 16th birthday, Mary enters religious life becoming Sr Cecilia. Mary and her sister, Martha, are sent to boarding school, not a posh school, a standard Catholic school for country girls. It is here she is introduced to the idea of becoming a nun by visiting sisters. Mary is idealistic and naive. Yet, it is also true to say that Mary from an early age has been conscious of a reality within and beyond her which she understands as a divine connection.

For example, page 44: "I had a clear sense of the invisible beauties of the world, of realities I could not name, that I knew not everyone recognised. I had to own that I more than recognised, I felt. Felt connected to that reality which was at the same time core to my own being."

This is central to her character. She struggles with it but cannot deny it. It is this which motivates her choice to join a religious order.

Her sister Martha, on the other hand, goes to UCC after she completes secondary school. They are close, so this parting is a wrench. They write to each other and Mary is excited by the vibrant life her sister Martha is enjoying.

In the final term of what would have been her third year studying for a degree in philosophy, Martha dies suddenly. We learn this very early on in the book so, no spoilers. She dies six weeks before Mary, now Sr Cecilia, takes her first temporary vows, her first profession. Sr Cecilia, visits home, by special permission, for the first time in three years to attend her sister’s wake and funeral.

Martha remains present throughout the book and the truth of what befell Sr Cecilia’s family is revealed in the final section of the book. It is not a story Sr Cecilia could have guessed, but one which she must face.

POWER AND CORRUPTION

As a nun she negotiates systems and experiences power which could corrupt her, giving her unquestioned authority but Cecilia is a seeker. She is not interested in authority for its own sake. She is interested in service. This is a conflict within her, as is her decision to become a nun, which, although her family accepts, they will always know and understand her as Mary. They make this clear to her. She too deals with this. Who is she? Sr Cecilia or Mary, or both? Can she be both?

Certainly, Sr Cecilia is somebody’s daughter, somebody’s sister, somebody’s niece, somebody’s aunt. She has a family by whom she is loved. This is what inspired me to write the book.

ALL GROWING IS PAINFUL

As a society we are truly growing up. All growing is painful. Historically, we are still a young republic. We started out very poor and in cruel circumstances. Clearly all of that has changed. We are coming to terms with the abuses of power which we experienced as a young republic when we might have expected to experience an emerging confidence and liberation. All abuse is about power. In our attempts to come to terms with the scandals of the mother & baby homes, the reformatories, the asylums, the corporal punishment, the orphanages; all of the manifest wrongs, we have vilified entire groups of people, specifically religious because it is easier to do this than to face our own hypocrisy and complicity in creating the society we became and are now, thankfully, emerging from,

There were and are those who had genuine vocations. Where are they gone? Their voices have been silenced in a sea of condemnation. Many such men and women are facing their final years resigned rather than affirmed in their life’s choices. Many who lived truly good, authentic lives are now almost afraid to say who they are. They are somebody’s sister, brother, son/daughter, uncle/aunt. We all know this. We are still pretty decent people. I think the near future will see us coming to terms in real and balanced ways. Every era will bring its challenges. We are living now. The now is all we have. If we see wrong, we should challenge it.

Sr Cecilia does. While she is in a teaching order, I deliberately do not name it. It could be any order. There were quite a few of them.

LAKESIDE LAUNCH

Published by the Limerick Writers Centre, 'All I Cannot Save' will be launched at the Lakeside by Dr Helena Guerin on Friday, December 6, at 7pm. All welcome.

The book will be available in Heaney's and Therese's, Killaloe, and TJ's in Ballina, and The Nenagh Bookshop. It is also available online: https://limerickwriterscentre.com/shop/.