Mali Berger is the author of eight books, including three novels in the Irish Trilogy, Steenie O'Shea, Aine's Story and Niamh River that take place in Galway Ireland, Mali Berger has also published short stories, a memoir and a book for children. In addition, she writes bi-monthly articles for the Arizona Authors Association Mali taught American Literature in Michigan and Chinese Universities as well as The Dalton School in Manhattan and presently balances life between New York City and :Galway, Ireland with visits to Dublin. Her love for drama and the theater as well as bundles of books from Kennys Bookshop in Galway are mirrored in her stories.
At first light she shot up to write down a spectacular dream in response to a confusing question that had puzzled her for several days—about the West of Ireland. Why had so many Irish writers chosen a Galway regional setting for some of their best work? In the dream an old woman was seeking shelter from the sounds of a battle and people were struggling to reach the safety of boats in the Atlantic.
The dream scattered in a laugh as she recognized bits and pieces of readings from her latest Modern Irish Writers semester course for the ‘over sixty’ at Fordham University in NYC. The old woman was of course Cathleen Ni Houlihan, and the battle was the United Irishmen’s rebellion against the British. Both occurred in 1798. William Butler Yeats from Sligo and County Galway with Lady Augusta Gregory also from Galway created the play as the old woman changed into a young girl with the walk of a queen as a symbol of Ireland’s future. (Harrington, James P., ed. Modern and Contemporary Irish Drama. Norton Critical Edition, 2009.) Joe Murphy created the novel 1798: Tomorrow the Barrow we’ll Cross, as young men disappeared, vanished from homes to join the rush into freedom. (Dublin, Liberties Press, 2011) Nearly alike, Michael Gillane, in the play, left his sched-uled wedding and family to follow Cathleen Ni Houlihan. "Look at him, Peter, he has the look of a man that got the touch," says his mother. (10)
James Joyce completed his Dublinners in 1907 with the short story, The Dead. (New York: Dover Publications, Inc. 1991.) It took place on the religious feast of Epiphany as Gabriel Conroy and wife Gretta arrived at the Dublin dance and dinner party of his spinster aunts. A somewhat shallow man who favored European culture over his own Irish birthright, he taught and wrote reviews for the pro-British newspaper, Daily Express, and gave a speech at the dinner. However Gabriel had problems with women. The maid, Lily, scorned his views of men, Polly Ivors called him a West Briton when he refused an excursion to the Aran Isles where Irish language was preferred, and Gretta reacted emotionally to an old Irish song, The Lass of Aughrim.
Gretta was the clue to Gabriel’s Epiphany. She told him about her first love, Michael Furey. In decline from consumption Michael stood outside her home in the rain the night she left for Dublin and died for love of Gretta. Gabriel reflecting on his own controlled, passionless life suddenly felt that Michael loved his wife more than he did and was overcome with a greater love for Gretta. He had never felt such feelings as his own identity faded out. He responded by thinking, "The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward." (152)
Nora Barnacle Joyce grew up in the very heart of Galway. Vivacious, full of fun and devilment with beautiful auburn hair and sparkling eyes, she worked as a chambermaid in a Dublin hotel when James Joyce met her. She sang the "Lass of Augh-rim" for him, they fell in love, appeared to live a happy life with two children, Giorgio and Lucia, even though their marriage was not legalized until years later. Since much of the author’s writing was semiautobiographical fiction, many believed that Gabriel and Gretta reflected Nora and James’ characteristics. Joyce did journey west and wrote articles when he visited his in-laws in the Galway house near the Church of St. Nicholas where Nora was raised. (Paderaic, Laoi O. Nora Barnacle Joyce: A Portrait. Galway, High Street, Kenny’s Bookshops and Art Galleries Ltd., 1982.)
Again the confusing question puzzled her. Why had so many Irish writers chosen the West Coast for their settings? Did the 1798 United Irishmen’s spirit, old woman’s psychic ‘touch’, Gretta’s first love, Michael Furey’s passionate love, old Irish song, Gabriel’s Epiphany and the most important line in the Dublinners, (for her), "The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward," as well as Yeats, Gregory, Joyce, and Barnacle provide a vitality or strong feeling for future authors who placed their stories in the West Coast site, often Gal-way?
Maybe, she asked herself, the glorious panorama, was a major attraction. One needed to look no further than Patrick McGinley’s publication of That Unearthly Valley: A Donegal Childhood, a charming gem of a memoir about his rural upbringing. (Dublin: New Island. 2011) Repeatedly, the author pulled readers into the mystery of an Otherworld where early saints saught a landscape of coves, sea cliffs, black rocks of eerie shapes, bleak austerity of the Atlantic, cries of sea gulls and cormorants plus a remarkable echo perhaps of a prehistoric world life beyond the bourn of what was consciously known. This ‘back to the beyond’ natural world summoned Patrick again and again as a psychic desire accompanied his journeys into the natural world.
Something uncanny called future generations of Irish authors to the West Coast. If she had it correct, James Joyce believed it wasn’t writing the words of love, but actually loving someone or something that made the difference. Possibly she was beginning to understand her own attraction to Galway.
Her latest roll call of Galway settings included Moya Cannon, Carrying the Songs; Nuala Ni Chonchuir, Tattoo: Tatu; Susan Miller DuMars, Dreams for Breakfast; Orfhlaith Foyle, Somewhere in Minnesota; Michael Harnett, The Boys; Jim Mullarkey, AND-- and on and on they arrived, from Kennys’ Bookshop in Galway to her New York City, apartment, these bundle of books with West Coast settings.
