Research

Researching components of the novel is important and tricky. The main reason I’m here in Ireland is so that I can write the Irish component authentically. I did my preparation before I left home – wrote out my questions, things I needed to find out, places to go etc. Google was helpful in giving preliminary details and opening up more questions.

So yesterday, I set off in the car from Galway to find out where my character’s brother lives. I found the perfect spot, took photographs, screen shot the location and drove on to the next point. This was an airport over an hour north. Braving the perpetual rain, I parked and ran inside. I got out my phone camera and it was dead. It wasn’t just battery dead, it was dead-dead! The dive into the toilet the night before had done its damage, water insidiously working its way through to the mother-board while I remained ignorant of the impending destruction. (“Feck” as the Irish say.)

Once I reached Donegal, the hope I’d maintained vanished as the mobile-phone repairer opened it up for surgery. Feeling inexplicably desperate, I bought a new phone and hoped the cloud would find my photos. Nope – hadn’t backed them up to the cloud! Fellow researchers – do this!

Drowning my sorrows in wine and chocolate, I slept on it and started today with renewed vigour. I had to find the nursing home I’d selected in Donegal for my character’s mother. Coughing up to pay for data roaming was a decision not taken lightly, but I couldn’t find a specific address or location on a map. This seems to be typical of Ireland. Apple map sent me off to a weird place and spoke to me in Irish. Google map sent me on a wild trip up a pot-holed tiny laneway. I kept saying to myself, this can’t be right. I stopped at the closed gate with the patrolling donkeys. Getting out to pat them made me feel marginally better.

Giving up, I decided to sight- see for a while. Getting back on the highway (all roads have a speed limit of 100km/hour) I sped past a sign that my shrunken brainwaves recognised as the name of the nursing home. Calmly, I pulled over and went back to follow the sign, finding that it was another narrow, tree-covered, gravel road. Nevertheless, I persevered and found myself at the nursing home. This was a great reward.

Finally, I had to find where my character’s mother lived. The young chap in the tourist information centre was so into helping me, I’ll name him in the novel. He Google-mapped and street-viewed and came up with a solution which I was able to check out in the afternoon. Perfect!

What great fun! This is sight-seeing with purpose and even the deviations and frustrations lead up other laneways. I’ve now found out a new word too – boreen – little road. How many can I explore?