How the world of writing remains a wonderland for Alice Taylor

SOME people like to run, Alice Taylor likes to write… a lot.

She’s just launched her 30th book called Come Sit Awhile which is all about taking a moment to lift ourselves out of our everyday busyness, as well as penning her first children’s book Ellie and the Fairy Door which she wrote with her daughter.

‘I just love writing, it’s my safety valve,’ says the wellknown and much-loved Innishannon woman.

‘I don’t write every day though – I envy people who have the discipline to sit down and do that. I could go for months without writing and then get a notion and there’d be no stopping me. I’d write early morning and late at night!’

Now in her 80s, Alice said she was a late starter when it came to writing – she was busy running a shop and guesthouse in Innishannon with her husband Gabriel and raising her family of five.

Her first ‘official’ book was the global bestseller To School Through the Fields, which was translated into numerous languages including Japanese, and published in 1988, when she was 50. It was a huge success and saw her invited on The Late Late Show, when it was still hosted by Gay Byrne.

She was on his morning radio show several times as well, which she said ‘made the book’.

‘He was a superb interviewer, and that was a time when the whole country listened to radio. But I actually wrote a book of poems before that, called The Way We Are which was all about village life in Innishannon. I came from a farm on the Cork-Kerry border and I absolutely loved the village – it was totally different to how it is now, no traffic lights for starters! I was very conscious that a way of life was ending and I wanted to preserve it, which I did through a collection of poetry,’ she said.

She compares publishing a book as like ‘taking your clothes off in public’.

‘I remember I went home to North Cork when the book of poems came out, to feel safe, as I was so nervous!’

What was the inspiration for her latest book? ‘I think life is moving at a fierce pace, we’re nearly jumping over each over so this is an invitation to sit down for a minute. In it I share things I’ve done over the years which have meant a lot to me, like poems, some of my own, and some meditations,’ she said.

Alice Taylor with Elmarie Mawe who launched the book and Dan Sweetnam, Liam Allen and Bill Allen. (Photo: Denis Boyle)

Alice meditates daily and has done for years. It helps to quieten the ‘busy little man with a hammer’ in her mind.

She laughs when we express admiration: ‘It’s all applying your bottom to the chair! You could be reading about it forever but that’s what it is. I suggest trying 30 minutes in the morning and evening but that’s not achievable for everyone but it’s about sitting down and resting our minds.’

Meditation, she points out, was part of our lives before, when we didn’t even realise it.

‘We used to walk three miles to and from school every day, and be in and out to the fields for the cows and the horses. We spent a lot of time with nature and that has a healing effect, which we’re missing out on now. Oasis of peace are scarce which is why I think the church is such a valuable place.’

Prayers are also included and Alice says she has a strong faith.

‘I’m one of those antiques who goes to mass regularly and I love the quietness of the church. I think churches are one of the last bastions of peace. The church has been through turbulent times, but I think all the rotten branches have been removed. It’s a slimmed down, humble church now, with some great priests who are doing their best, and it’s far healthier.’

At the launch of her bookCome Sit Awhile at Innishannon was Alice Taylor with Elmarie Mawe and Una, Valerie and Orla Collins. (Photo: Denis Boyle)

She’s a believer in prayer and prays to her ‘A Team’– her beloved late husband Gabriel, her parents, her brother who passed when he was small, and some good friends.

‘People say there’s nothing beyond, but neither side knows for sure. In today’s world people need an explanation for everything but there’s some things we can’t explain. Certain things are beyond us and people find it difficult to accept,’ she says. She feels grateful to be living in Ireland, in West Cork.

‘The world is a very troubled place now we’re so lucky to be living in such a peaceful place. Inner peace and a peaceful world are so valuable.’

As well as Come Sit Awhile, Alice has just launched her first book for children, along with only daughter Lena Angland, a charming new picture book for young readers called Ellie and the Fairy Door illustrated by Kilkenny illustrator Audrey Dowling.

Ellie And The Fairy Door, Alice Taylor's book made with her daughter.

‘Lena who works in IT has also invented a new app to inspire and encourage families to get outside for walks more, around the country. Called Wanderly, when children go for walks in the woods/on local trails, parents can use the app to make little cartoon creatures, fairies, etc. appear along the walk,’ says Alice.

Alice, who also has four sons, said it was wonderful to work with Lena on the project.

‘It is like a foreign land to me but we both learned from it,’ she said.

Aged 85 and grateful for her good health, she keeps busy.

‘I don’t feel invisible to society, but I feel that’s up to myself. My grandchildren revitalise me, I go for a walk every day, I’m involved in the Tidy Towns, I enjoy reading and gardening. If I’m in bad form, I go to the garden for 30 minutes and all of sudden the world is a great place again. We all need that connection with the earth.’

Her advice to her younger self is to be more tolerant.

‘Both with myself and with others. That comes with age I think, you see that you can’t control the world and can only do your best in your own space. I think kindness is the most important virtue and we all need to be more generous with it.’

Come Sit Awhile, she says, is a book for when you can’t get out for a walk, or catch up with a friend for a chat.

‘For days when you feel like lying down and not getting up, because we all have days like that. We need people around us, and on the days when that doesn’t happen, this book will provide a pick-me-up. My wish for the book is that people will feel in the better of it after reading it.’ It would be impossible not to.

Will there be another book?

‘I suppose so! I always like to have something going on!'