California based author Sean Sullivan is bound for Beara this week to launch his two novels set on the peninsula, The Bargain of Beara and The Beara Volunteer.
Sean, whose father Florence ‘Florry’ O’Sullivan was born and raised in Lehanmore, Allihies, is a regular visitor to the area.
His father emigrated to the USA in 1949, settling in Butte in Montana where he worked with the Anaconda Copper Company.
He married Montana-native Norma McCabe, a Dublin woman, and the couple had four sons, and subsequently moved to California when Sean was six years old.
Working as a high-school english teacher, Sean had always had an ambition to write fiction: ‘throughout my entire life I had wanted to write but as a busy teacher I never had the opportunity or the time’.
Following the death of his father, and in his own retirement, he started to research his father’s family history and credits this as kickstarting his writing career.
His first work was an ancestral narrative, In Search of Whiskey Moments, which he self-published in 2019.
It documented six generations of his ancestors as well as accounts of his own visits to Ireland, including tales of meeting up with new-found friends and relatives over a shared glass of whiskey.
Further research of his family history, and holidays spent in Beara, inspired Sean to write his first full length novel, The Bargain of Beara.
The book, set in Beara of the early 1900s, recounts the story of a recently widowed 38-year-old stonemason and father of seven children, and that of a 20-year-old seamstress with dreams of opening her own dress shop.
The couple are brought together by the combined efforts of several eccentric characters, including their neighbours and three meddling local parish priests.
The story, says Sean, is based on his grandparents: ‘My grandfather Patsy O’Sullivan Bearnach, was a stonemason who was widowed at the age of 38, and left with seven children. He later married a 20-year-old, seamstress Kate O’Sullivan from Rossmacowen, in 1909 and would have a further 10 children with her.
I tried to wrap my head around those circumstances’, Sean explained, ‘and began to speculate about what could have brought these two people together.’
He self-published the book in 2020, and then began work on his second book, drawing on more of his family history.
Sean had discovered that his uncle Tim O’Sullivan served in the local IRA during the War of Independence.
A Beara Volunteer released in 2022 is based on his uncle’s story, backed up by eyewitness accounts Sean sourced from the Irish Military Archives; the book also includes some of the same memorable characters from The Bargain of Beara.
Sean explained that the common thread of both novels is that they are loosely based on the lives of his ancestors, and both incorporate recurring characters with a sharp, witty dialogue to drive the narrative.
He is currently working on his third novel of ‘The Beara Trilogy’, which will be published later this year.
From Beara to Butte: Florry’s Journey will focus on his father’s boyhood, service in the Irish Free Sate Army on Bere Island during World War II, and his emigration to America in 1949.
‘Ultimately, my aim with the books is to pay tribute to the universal Irish spirit, the ability to overcome great difficulty through grit, wit, and perseverance.’
The Bargain of Beara and A Beara Volunteer was launched at the Allihies Copper Mine Museum on Friday June 13th at 8pm.
Both books are available to purchase locally at Polly’s Bookshop, Castletownbere and also online.
