Clare O'Dea's Blog

Two high points of my childhood summers were berry picking and wild swimming. Those two free pleasures are still part of my life, and I managed to do both today – pick blackberries in the forest and go for a dip in my local river. With a good book thrown in, the perfect Sunday.

I’ve read more than usual this summer, helped by the fact that I have access to an endless supply of books at my day job working for a book distributor. I’ve just finished The Paris Express by Emma Donoghue, a real page-turner about a train hurtling towards disaster in 1895.

The novel is based on the true story of a derailment and, to create her characters, Emma Donoghue used the biographies of real people who were either on the train or could well have been. She says she drew on more than 40 articles about the accident in 26 publications. To find out more about the individual lives, especially uncelebrated ones, she “ransacked the wonderful hoard of French bureaucracy filae.com”.  The result of all this – apart from a gripping, richly-imagined story – is that you find out what became of the main characters in later life.  

Recent favourite reads include Tell Me What I Am by Una Mannion, Shy Creatures by Clare Chambers, Love is Blind by William Boyd, Audition by Katie Kitamura and the unforgettable Clear by Carys Davies.

Meanwhile preparations for the publication of my new novel Before the Leaves Fall are continuing and it’s time to save the date(s)! The Swiss launch of the book will take place in Stauffacher Bookshop in Bern on Thursday, October 9th at 8pm. The event is being generously sponsored by the Irish Embassy. Full details at this link.

Two weeks later in Dublin, the Gutter Bookshop in Cow’s Lane will host the Irish launch on Thursday, October 23rd, time tbc. All are welcome. I’m extremely grateful to both bookshops, who have a great record in supporting authors.

In between, I’ll be at the Frankfurt Book Fair for work and will hopefully steal a moment to present my book to Literature Ireland, which publishes a catalogue of translation-worthy new Irish fiction titles. I’d love to see the book translated into the Swiss languages as Voting Day was.

Before all that, September has some literary treats in store. I’ll be attending the annual Le livre sur les quais festival in Morges on the weekend of September 5th-7th. The full English programme has been published and it includes Natasha Brown, Alan Hollinghurst, Caroline Bishop, Mark O’Connell, Claire Massud and more. I’m very pleased to be interviewing Padraig Rooney about his biography of Annemarie Schwarzenbach, one of the most interesting Swiss women of the 20th century. That event is at 1pm on Saturday 6th in Hotel La Couronne.

At the end of September, the wonderful Jonathan Coe is coming to Geneva as a guest of the Société de Lecture. I will be interviewing him in the elegant salon jaune on Monday, September 29th. There’s lots to talk about in his latest cleverly-plotted, satirical, dark-yet-funny novel, The Proof of My Innocence.

With all that hopping around, I hope I get to see some of you over the next couple of months. For now, let’s enjoy this summer feeling and any good books we find along the way.

Death, destruction and displacement on a massive scale – that is Gaza today. The people have inadequate food and shelter, and live every day in terror of the next attack. Children are killed, maimed, orphaned, traumatised beyond belief. They’ve lost everything , and many will face lifelong effects of malnutrition in combination with physical and psychological scars.

When will it be enough? Israel’s usual response to the killing of its own citizens has been to kill many multiples more civilians in the area the threat came from. That pattern is part of the region’s recent history. Hamas knew that when they brought down the wrath of hell on their own people by launching the mass killing and kidnapping attack of October 2023.

What reaction were they hoping to provoke? A revenge so awful that Israel would lose all legitimacy and backing, opening to the way to a state of Palestine? Perhaps. Yet Isael’s killing-spree is still under way at no particular cost to the country’s core support globally. How many of their compatriots’ lives were Hamas prepared to sacrifice in this pointless escalation? At least 58,000 as it turns out – and counting.

Twenty months on, Israel and Hamas share the blame for this ongoing catastrophe. The Israeli army is either the most incompetent or the most brutal in the world. They appear to be incapable of killing combatants without slaughtering thousands of innocent people and destroying essential infrastructure and entire residential areas. They cannot/ will not provide adequate food and shelter for those displaced by their actions. They will not stop killing and destroying; no target is exempt. For all their superior resources, they are unable to wrest control of a tiny piece of land in more than 1.5 years of trying. All they can do is destroy and lie about it. This is what we see.  

I don’t care whether the term genocide is valid or not. It does not matter what word you use. The sum of the parts of the Israeli campaign in Gaza is abominable, a crime of the ages, whatever you call it – a stain on the soul of Israel. The strategy and actions of Hamas equally so.

Extending the agony of the civilian population is deeply wrong. Hamas and Israel choose war over peace every day, sacrificing the poor people of Gaza. The greater betrayal lies with Hamas for dragging their own people into this war in the first place, and choosing to hide behind them every horrendous day that goes by. The greater responsibility lies with the democratic state of Israel for the absolute power it holds over the lives of Gaza’s residents.

What is the point in saying all of this? There is so much self-righteous noise and anger around this conflict already, fuelling hatred.  I’m not an expert on the region and I have no media organisation behind me any more, but I do have a moral compass. The cynical, merciless leadership of Israel and Gaza are the worst their people could possibly have at this point in time. To be clear, I distinguish between the Israeli state and army and the people of Israel. I distinguish between the planners and participants of October 7th and the people of Gaza. I recognise that both societies have a share of private and public dissent. And I trust the testimony of medical staff and independent humanitarian organisations.

This is not the time to peddle in denial or simplistic slogans. Such dishonesty is not the way out of this horror. After “Two Legs Bad, Four Legs Good”, we should all know that. Who will end Gaza’s agony? Only those who are inflicting it can end it.

On a local level, the grain of support I have goes to the political party in Switzerland showing the most concern for the people of Gaza, the Social Democrats (Sozialdemokratische Partei der Schweiz). I also salute the efforts of the Irish government to stop the bloodshed.

The ongoing torment of Gaza is the biggest mistake in the shared history of the two sides. Because they do have a shared history and, more importantly, a shared future. By hurting each other, they’re hurting themselves. Their only viable future is as good neighbours. But where are the leaders who could take them there? Let’s hope they emerge when this nightmare ends. Israel and Palestine have never needed them so badly.

One of the milestones of publishing a book is the moment when the cover design is revealed. I’m delighted to share the cover of Before the Leaves Fall with you today, along with the first endorsements the novel has received from authors Liz Nugent, Annie Lyons, Anne Griffin and Martina Devlin.

These amazing authors all gave their support unstintingly and I appreciate their generosity hugely. So here are the quotes, which I hope will whet your appetite for October.

‘This is a beautifully written study of Ruedi and Margrit, loosely connected by their past, bonding over a life changing decision causing both parties to reflect on their lives and relationships without sentimentality. The short length of the novel lends itself perfectly to the life expectancy of Margrit. Profoundly moving, I loved this book.’ — Liz Nugent, author of Strange Sally Diamond

‘A beautifully written story of unlikely friendship and the choices we face as we reach the end of our lives. Profound, poignant and refreshingly honest, this is very much a novel for our times.’ — Annie Lyons, author of The Brilliant Life of Eudora Honeysette 

Before The Leaves Fall once again shows O’Dea as a competent writer, unafraid to examine the relevant and vital issues of ordinary lives in Switzerland. The power of self-determination shines through in this touching read.’ — Anne Griffin, author of The Island of Longing

‘A poignant account of the lost boy trapped inside an old man, and his chance reconnection with a woman who touched his life when hers is almost played out. Told with compassion, wisdom and insight, it considers how death can offer a new perspective on life. It stayed with me long after I reached the end.’ — Martina Devlin, author of The House Where It Happened and Charlotte.

This evening I sent off my feedback on the proofreader’s changes, which basically involved me agreeing with everything she marked up, bowing to her superior knowledge about hyphenation and the difference between ‘on to’ and ‘onto’. The next time I see the manuscript will be between the covers of a printed book! If you’re stuck for reading material in the meantime, have a look at the websites of the four talented writers above and take your pick.

I can’t wait for October. But I also want to enjoy this time before, when I can dream big about the book, hoping that it gets widely read and positively received, and that people understand – as Liz, Annie, Anne and Martina have done – that it comes from a good place.  

At last I can share the good news that my second novel will be published in October by Fairlight Books. Before the Leaves Fall is set in present-day Switzerland and tells the story of Margrit and Ruedi who have come together for the most important of reasons.

Here’s the text from the back cover:

“Seeking a new purpose in life, Swiss widower Ruedi signs up to work with Depart, an assisted dying organisation. His role is to spend time with those who have sought out Depart’s services, acting as a guide and companion in their final weeks.

Margrit, his crotchety first client, wants only to get on with things. Marking time in a care home, with poor health weighing down on her, she has decided it’s time to go. Her family are upset by her choice, but she is determined. By the end of the summer, she’ll have left the world behind – and on her own terms.

Yet when she and Ruedi realise their paths have crossed once before, an unexpected bond forms. One that will illuminate both their lives.”

If you ask me what the book is about beyond the story, the answer changes all the time. I could say it’s about relationships and regrets. Or that it’s about the things we hide and how small steps can lead us astray in life. It’s also about the magic of human connection and making up for lost time.

Those who’ve read Voting Day (set in 1959) will recognise the two main characters but Before the Leaves Fall is a stand-alone novel.

I hope that readers will identify with these characters and take them to their hearts. I’m excited to find out what you all think but I’ll just have to wait!

All winter, the various Irish groups in Switzerland have been meeting regularly online to plan Ireland Week. And now that St. Patricks’ Day is approaching, we’re counting down to the first events next weekend.

The Ireland Week programme includes one Fribourg event, where I will get to interview award-winning Irish author and newspaper columnist Martina Devlin. If you’re within reach of Fribourg city, do join us at Centre le Phénix, rue des Alpes, on Saturday 15th at 5pm. The talk will be followed by music and drinks.

Martina’s latest novel, Charlotte, explores the little-known Irish connections of Charlotte Brontë, who died less than a year after her honeymoon in Ireland. At that stage, Charlotte had lost all five of her siblings and this was her brief chance at happiness. Her Irish widower went on to marry a younger cousin who had met and admired Charlotte on that Irish trip and would remain forever in her shadow.

We’ll be talking about Charlotte, and perhaps some of Martina’s eight other novels. Early this century, Martina and I crossed paths briefly as journalists in Dublin so there’s a high risk we’ll also touch on current affairs. I am so pleased to have this opportunity to present such a talented writer to a Swiss audience. Full details on the Irish Festival website. With thanks to Tourism Ireland, Colm Kelleher and the Irish Embassy for their support.

Meanwhile in Zurich, fans of Irish literature will be spoilt for choice, with five ‘Irish Voices’ author events during Ireland Week, as well as a literary pub stroll, a writing workshop (in German) and ‘A Dublin Man’s Guide to Zurich’ walking tour. Back to the Ireland Week link for details and you can enter two competitions to win flights to Ireland while you’re at it.

The Irish Voices series is organised by the Swiss Centre of Irish Studies and hosted by the Zurich James Joyce Foundation. The series kicks off with Martina Devlin (in Zurich) on Friday 14th at 7.30pm. Wendy Erskine, Melatu Uche Okorie and Elaine Feeney will each have their own event, finishing up with the authors of the Complete Aisling series, Orla Breen and Emer McLysaght on March 22nd.

Just before Ireland Week, on March 11th, Colum McCann will be at the Literaturhaus in Zurich to talk about his new novel, Twist. I believe that event is almost sold out. But you can check on the Literaturhaus website.  

I would love to go to all these events but I’m going to be at the London Book Fair and the Salon du Livre in Geneva for work, which clashes with everything. Luckily Martina Devlin can make time to come to Fribourg in between!

While I’m in London, I’m also going to meet my UK publisher and editor in person for the first time, even though we’re well advanced on book two! Can’t wait to hear about Fairlight Books’ plans for my new novel. The title and publication date should be announced very soon. Hopefully that will be my next post!

Enjoy Ireland Week & St. Patrick’s Day, let me know what you get up to, and may the sun shine warm upon your face etc.

The post Irish authors winging their way to Switzerland appeared first on Clare O'Dea.

Famous people with a dark side run the risk of having their diaries and correspondence destroyed by those close to them who want to influence how the person is remembered. But is this done to protect the reputation of the living or the dead?

In the recent BBC drama Miss Austen, Jane’s sister Cassandra is shown to be acting out of love when she burns Jane’s unhappiest letters. It’s not so likely that Renée Schwarzenbach was acting out of love when she destroyed her daughter Annemarie’s letters and diaries after the young writer’s tragic death in 1942.

Reputation meant different things to the two women. Renée cared mainly about a certain kind of rich, pro-Nazi respectability, and Annemarie cared about recognition and her own personal freedom.

This mother-daughter relationship from hell is just one of many fascinating threads running through Padraig Rooney’s mesmerising new biography of the iconic Swiss writer, journalist and photographer Annemarie Schwarzenbach.

In Rebel Angel: The Life and Times of Annemarie Schwarzenbach, Rooney gets as close to the troubled beauty as it is possible to get, yet the ever-striving, ever-suffering Annemarie still keeps some mystery about her. Maybe the answers were in those long-lost letters.

Zurich-born Annemarie came of age in the 1920s, with an appetite for every possible kind of adventure – travel, sexual, narcotic, creative and political. Annemarie was always running from her conservative and hypocritical upbringing. Eyes on the horizon, she was also seeking relevance and a real place in the world as a young, lesbian woman with something to say.

Schwarzenbach was the kind of writer who could lock herself in a hotel room for two weeks in between drink and drugs binges, and come out with a novel. She fell madly in love time and time again but never seemed to find her soulmate. She drove flashy cars, dressed in masculine clothes from a very young age and travelled to far-flung places, generating endless travel articles for Swiss media, and picking up a marriage of convenience along the way.  

Annemarie Schwarzenbach started feverishly writing articles as a student in Zurich. By the time she finished her studies in Paris, she was a published novelist. She went on to write many books – fiction with an autobiographical imprint, non-fiction and travel. And she took amazing photographs all over the world, some of which are featured in the book, along with moody portraits taken by her many admirers.

In Rebel Angel, Padraig Rooney has captured Annemarie Schwarzenbach, who deserves to be celebrated as a queer icon, in all her self-destructive brilliance and chaos. She liked peace when she found it but she didn’t find it often.

Annemarie was closely involved with Thomas Mann’s family, mainly his two wildest children, Erika and Klaus, who were close friends and sometimes more. She turned up as a long-staying guest in various Mann households in Germany, France and the United States over the years, causing trouble more often than not.

A morphine addition wreaked havoc on most of Annemarie’s adult years. Her friendships were taxed to the limit, and, during her most severe breakdown in New York in 1940, past the limit. Those were times when her family had to step in.  

Rooney’s book encompasses so much of this incredibly full life – family conflicts, the 1930s social scene in Berlin, travels to Persia, Afghanistan, India, the United States, the Soviet Union, the west coast of Africa, Congo. Unfortunately, Annemarie’s addictions and regular mental health crises left her at the mercy of the psychiatric treatments of the day.

Most of these experiences happened in first-class settings though Annemarie’s sympathies were usually with the downtrodden of society. She was virulently anti-Nazi, unlike some members of her family, notably her mother, who went the other way.   

Meanwhile, war was looming until it eventually crashed over everything. Annemarie had many friends who were refugees, scrambling for the right papers, sneaking over borders at night, the unlucky ones ending up in enemy alien camps or going down with a torpedoed ship.

Interestingly, Annemarie Schwarzenbach never wrote about female suffrage, or lack of it, in her homeland. Rooney notes the contradiction between Annemarie’s sympathy for the injustices endured by the downtrodden black population of the Southern US states and her blithe acceptance of mass exploitation in colonial Africa. She saw the latter system as being important for the war effort and possibly, like many (most?) of her generation of European, the natural order of things.

Padraig Rooney’s rebel angel emerges as a tragic figure unable to find contentment, who, after all her dangerous escapades, died after the most innocuous seeming bicycle accident in her beloved Sils in Graubünden. Her head injury was atrociously mismanaged and her mother swooped in at the end to control her free-spirited daughter one last time.

Rebel Angel: The Life and Times of Annemarie Schwarzenbach is published by Polity Books in February 2025 and is worth getting for the photos alone. Available online and in all good bookshops, if you have the patience to wait a couple of days.

Photo credit: ETH-Bibliothek Zürich, Bildarchiv/Stiftung Luftbild Schweiz / Fotograf: Swissair / LBS_SR01-01270 / CC BY-SA 4.0

The post Rebel Angel: powerful new biography of a trailblazing Swiss writer appeared first on Clare O'Dea.

Six months ago, I started a new job working for a Swiss book distribution company. It was getting more and more difficult to make a living as a freelancer so I decided to come in from the cold. That’s why you haven’t heard so much from me recently.

On my first day, I was shown around the warehouse, a stopping point for three million books that might or might not be picked one day. A few copies of my own books were in among the multitudes. Surrounded by all that human endeavour, I felt a mixture of admiration and discouragement.

Since then, I’ve had good news on the publishing front. Fairlight Books, the UK publisher of Voting Day has decided to publish my second novel next autumn. I’ll tell you all about it with plenty of fanfare when the news is official.

At the moment I’m working on edits to the book, adding new scenes and finishing touches. It’s such a relief to have the backing of an editor again! I can’t wait to see what readers think of this story, which touches on existential questions.

Now that I have a regular day job, I’m not publishing journalism anymore, for the first time in almost 30 years. Before signing off, I published a collection of my recent articles (2022 – 2024) in the ebook All About Switzerland. All purchases and reviews greatly appreciated!

Thankfully I still have my writing life. One of the things I enjoy most about being an author is the comradeship of other writers. Three of my Swiss-connected allies have books coming out in the first months of 2025 and I encourage you to discover their work.

Padraig Rooney is back with Rebel Angel a biography of the Swiss icon Annemarie Schwarzenbach, “one of the twentieth century’s most remarkable women, possibly the greatest sexual and political radical of the 1930s”. To be published by Polity Books in February.

Padraig is also the non-fiction judge for the relaunched Geneva Writers’ Group Literary Prize. The GWG Literary Prize 2025 invites writers to explore the power of hope and the resilience of the human spirit. The categories are fiction, creative non-fiction and poetry and the submission deadline is January 31st. Entering a writing competition could be a great New Year’s Resolution … why not?

Also in February, Lausanne-based Caroline Bishop is publishing her third novel, The Day I Left You, set against the backdrop of the Cold War. I just know I’m going to love this one: “An epic love story about Greta and Henry, who by chance meet in 1982 East Berlin and find a love that’s meant to last a lifetime—until Greta vanishes.” Published by Simon & Schuster.

And in April, also with Simon & Schuster (Seventh Street Books), Kim Hays will publish the fourth crime novel in her Polizei Bern series, Splintered Justice. After a tragic death at the Münster Cathedral in Bern, homicide detective Giuliana Linder and her investigating partner Renzo Donatelli have to contend with powerful lies and the passage of time to get to the truth.

For anyone near Geneva, you should keep an eye on English programme of the Société de Lecture. This year, their guests included Deborah Levy and Rachel Cusk, both of whom I had the honour of interviewing. Next year I’ll be in the hotseat myself, speaking about The Naked Swiss on January 22nd. I’m also very excited that I will get to interview David Nicholls in May!

The Irish Festival Fribourg/Freiburg will also be back in a small way in March, hosting a literary event as part of Ireland Week. We’ve booked a fantastic Irish writer but that news merits a dedicated blogpost announcement so I’ll save it until January.

I’m planning to keep up more regular contact through this blog in 2025. In the meantime, I wish you happy reading and writing, a relaxing Christmas break and a bright New Year.

The post A new novel and other exciting news appeared first on Clare O'Dea.

Did you know that I’ve been writing about Switzerland for twenty years? Most of that writing has taken the form of journalism, and today I have something new to share with you – a book of selected articles written for The Local Switzerland between 2022 and 2024.

All About Switzerland officially launches today as an ebook, available on Amazon, Kobo, and other online retailers. With the support of The Local Switzerland, I hope to reach new readers who are interested in gaining insider knowledge about this special country.

Now’s your chance to get up to date on Swiss current affairs and society, with sections on money, the future, women, foreigners, Europe and more. Who are the elite in Switzerland? What are the best cantons for foreigners to live in? Why is Switzerland failing in the fight against money laundering? Find out the answers to these questions and many more in this broad-ranging mix of facts, analysis and personal perspective. 

There are no FAQs about this ebook because it’s brand new! But here, to put you in the picture, are some questions I anticipate.

What’s the book about?

The book contains a selection of 29 news and background articles, opinion pieces and personal essays about Switzerland. The articles were first published online between 2022 and 2024 in The Local Switzerland. I have grouped the articles into themes, and added an introduction and key facts. Some of the articles are fun but most are serious. It’s basically an up-to-date guide to Swiss society and current affairs.

What is The Local?

Founded in 2004, The Local provides news, advice and essential information to readers in nine countries across Europe. As well as in Switzerland, The Local has teams of journalists on the ground in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Germany, France, Spain, Italy and Austria. Here is a piece I wrote for The Local about how Switzerland has changed over the past 20 years.

Who is All About Switzerland for?

Readers who enjoyed my first book, The Naked Swiss: A Nation Behind 10 Myths, will feel at home with All About Switzerland. It’s for people who want to understand Switzerland better, either because they live here or have a special interest in the country. It’s for people who like their non-fiction to be informed by thorough research and direct experience.

Why are you publishing All About Switzerland?

It seemed to me that this body of writing would add up to something greater than the sum of its parts. I thought it deserved a wider audience and, luckily, The Local agreed. Put together, these articles give a comprehensive picture of modern Switzerland for an English-speaking readership, neatly filling the gap left since the publication of last edition of The Naked Swiss in 2018.

How are you publishing this ebook?

This is a self-publishing venture and experiment in one. The content is fresh and should be published immediately, the kind of turn-around that is not possible with a traditional publisher. I have used the platform IngramSpark, which lists the ebook on the larger retailers’ websites, collecting the sales data and proceeds minus a nice commission. I designed the cover myself, with the help of Canva and Unsplash (thank you, Baptiste for the lovely image of Lucerne). Backed by The Local, I’ll do my best to make the ebook visible. Hopefully, the right people will hear about it and buy it.

Where can I buy All About Switzerland?

The ebook should be easily findable through the main online retailers. The design works on all kinds of ereaders. All About Switzerland costs between 5.00 and 7.99 in the three main currencies: francs, euros, dollars. Buy the ebook online at Amazon France, Amazon Germany, Amazon UK, Amazon.com, Kobo and elsewhere.

Why just an ebook?

Publishing an ebook is quicker and simpler than publishing a regular book. Because this is a one-woman, learning-by-doing operation, I’d like to see how well it all works with the ebook first.

How can I support the launch?

The fact that you’ve read this far is already very encouraging! Buying the book is a fantastic way to support the project. Those early sales really help with visibility and algorithms. Spreading the word is also a big help, whether it’s by sharing social media posts, talking about the book in your circle or posting reviews wherever you are active online. Feel free to use the hashtag: #allaboutswitzerland

Many thanks in advance for your support! And thanks to Ben McPartland of The Local for being a great editor, to Helen Baggot for proofreading, and to Kim Hays for being such a loyal reader of these articles.

Feel free to drop by again with comments on the book. Besten Dank! Merci mille fois!

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This time eighteen years ago, with sleet falling outside and daylight fading, I was in a hospital in Lausanne, not quite believing that the doctor was saying, “poussez, poussez”. After all the births I had seen on television, I never imagined I’d end up doing it myself in a different language.

The delivery room was full of people, including paediatric staff on stand-by with incubators waiting to whisk the premature babies away. After the first baby was born, two nurses held my midriff tight to stop the other one changing position. Twenty minutes later, the second baby was born. Both small but perfect. Two girls.

Four years later, almost to the day, I was in a different delivery room, this time in Fribourg, for the birth of my third baby. She was full-term but in breach position so it was a caesarean. I remember finding it frightening to be so incapacitated by the scar for several days afterwards. I had such a powerful need to be well enough to pick her up and run from danger.

My three babies have grown into strong and beautiful young people. The girls turned our home into a love factory, bringing joy and delight on an endless conveyor belt. But you have to work in a factory! Luckily, their father and I loved the work.  

I would like share some thoughts about what I’ve learned from being a mother to three Swiss-Irish girls. I remember in the neo-natal ward, a nurse coaching me in how to care for the tiny babies. She said I should tell them what I’m doing so they know what’s going on. Even newborns need communication and respect.

Respect has remained at the centre of these relationships. I respect each child, their individuality, their opinions, their privacy. I respect the fact that they are different from me and different from each other.

We got excellent care in hospital. In the very early days, many kind people helped the babies thrive and me recover. As an emigrant, I really did not want to be an isolated mother, and that meant deliberately involving lots of people in the care, the work, the joy.

Both extended families played a big role in the children’s upbringing, as did creche workers, neighbours, friends and babysitters. I visited the free services, I joined mother-and-baby groups. As soon as the girls started to make friends, we made sure that our home was an open house for all the kids to visit, play and eat.  

Because the twins were used to sharing parental attention, and possibly also because of the four-year age gap, they showed no jealously whatsoever towards their younger sister. They were delighted with her from the beginning.

There was a stage where the twins used to both want the same thing. They once famously rowed over a blade of grass – in a field. A friend gave me a very good piece of advice, and again it was about communication. Next time they row about sitting in the seat of the supermarket trolley, she said, stop and ask them to help you. You both want the same thing and you can’t both have it. What should I do? They listened and came up with the solution of taking turns.

As much as possible, I think it’s important to get the children to work with you, to understand that they have a part to play in family relationships and the household. Three-year-olds can help tidy up, set the table or sweep the floor, and they should.

One of the most essential ingredients in family life, in my experience, is humour. Make your children laugh and they will forget their stubbornness. It is the best distraction and a handy remedy for conflict. I also think that when your kids see that you can laugh at yourself, they will be much more forgiving towards you.

When the children are small, accept that you will have your hands full. You throw yourself into new parenthood and you may lose yourself for a while. But that’s OK. There is a way back. I started writing when my youngest was two, that was my way of reclaiming my identity outside of motherhood, even if it was only for one hour before bedtime.

What I really saw with twins is that parents can’t take all the credit for ‘good’ results. With exactly the same meals, one became a hearty eater of vegetables, the other picky with a capital P. One was patient in her car seat, a good sleeper, the other not so much. They come with their own way of being, that’s the lesson.

We are lucky to live in Switzerland, where children have a lot of freedom. They walk to school and take buses alone from the age of six or seven. Our children spent a lot of time outside and did not receive their first phone until they had finished primary school aged 12.

If at all possible, I recommend as much time playing outside and as little time on devices as possible. Having said that, I think TV is great when it’s a shared experience. From the first Winnie the Pooh DVDs to Anne With an E during the pandemic, we have got so much enjoyment out of watching shows together. Even better is reading aloud, which carried on in our house well past the point that they could read themselves.

In more recent teenage years, my role as a mother feels like being an emotional meteorologist and a first responder in one. I read the weather and see who needs rescuing before or after the storm. But most of the time, the sun is shining. I’m very grateful that we still have respect, communication and fun in our home.

I’ve always embraced my children’s independence, which is lucky because it’s really speeding up now. My disproportionate fear for their safety and well-being is the price of that freedom, and has been since they first climbed a tree or rode a bike. It was ever thus for parents.

Preparing three slideshows of photographs for the girls’ birthdays, I feel like I have relived the happiest moments of our lives together. Of course, we also had sad days and frustrating days but the blessings were always there. Thank you, girls, for making me a better person. Thank you to my husband for sharing the adventure. And finally, thank you to my parents for leading the way with love.

The post Eighteen years of motherhood appeared first on Clare O'Dea.

The historical connections between Ireland and Switzerland run deep. Both countries share a Celtic past, and Switzerland (Confoederatio Helvetica) is even named after a Celtic tribe – the Helvetii – that once called these lands home.

The most legendary phase of Swiss-Irish connection was in medieval times when Irish monks travelled across the Continent after the fall of the Roman Empire, bringing learning to the peoples of Europe.

This era of saints and scholars is the subject of a pop-up exhibition taking place in Centre le Phénix, Fribourg this Friday, March 15th, from 2pm to 6pm. The exhibition is organised by the Irish Festival Fribourg/Freiburg as part of Ireland Week celebrations in Switzerland in the lead-up to St. Patrick’s Day.

Trailblazers

“Ireland and the Birth of Europe” exhibition tells the story of the long-lasting Irish presence in Europe, from Columbanus and his followers in the 6th and 7th centuries, up to the Irish-founded monasteries called Schottenklöster, a movement that peaked in the 13th century.

Around the year 590, Columbanus left the Irish monastery of Bangor for the Continent, where he established a succession of monasteries: Annegray, Fontaine, and Luxeuil in the Vosges mountains, and Bobbio near Genoa. Over the centuries, the monks were followed by scholars, theologians, philosophers, and poets.

Around 600 CE, Columbanus wrote ‘of all of Europe’ (totius Europae), becoming the first to use the expression in reference to the Continent’s cultural identity.

One of the original Bangor group, St. Gall, reached the region of today’s city of St. Gallen around 612 CE, and established a small settlement there in the wilderness, which was later the site of the famous Abbey of St. Gall. The Abbey Library, to this day, holds some of the most important sources of Old Irish in existence.

The Priscian manuscript

The following is an extract from my book, The Naked Irish: Portrait of a Nation Beyond the Clichés:

“Is acher ingáith innocht fufuasna faireggae findḟolt ni ágor réimm mora minn dondláechraid lainn ua lothlind

‘Bitter is the wind tonight, it tosses the ocean’s white hair

I fear not the coursing of a clear sea by the fierce warriors from Lothlend’

These words in Old Irish run along the top of a page of a manuscript of Latin grammar dating from the ninth century, the Priscian manuscript of St. Gallen. Lothlind, land of the lakes, is an early form of the Irish word for Scandinavia, more specifically Norway. The fierce heroes kept at bay by the weather are Viking raiders.

The unknown scribe who wrote these lines lived in dangerous times. We don’t know exactly what scriptorium he worked in, but two possible locations are the monasteries of Bangor or Nendrum, in Co. Down, both of which suffered heavily under Viking attacks in the ninth and tenth centuries. The monks would have breathed easier on stormy days.  

I love the idea of the obedient monk faithfully transcribing page after page of intricate text for months or years, working for the community, for learning, for God. And then, one dreary day, he feels the urge to write something heartfelt and original. He throws caution to the wind and allows himself a brief moment of creative expression. That brief moment of inspiration survives more than a millennium.”

Traces of the past

“Ireland and the Birth of Europe” was researched, written and curated by Dr Damian Bracken, University College Cork, and Dr Angela Byrne for the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs. The exhibition is hosted by the Irish Festival Fribourg/Freiburg with the support of the Embassy of Ireland. 

The source of the translation above is http://www.stgallpriscian.ie/index.php?id=7056&an=1 with input from Kuno Meyer’s translation. I was amazed I could recognise some Old Irish words – like ‘tonight’, ‘sea’, ‘wind’, ‘warrior/hero’ – that are very similar in Modern Irish. Needless to say, a visit to Abbey of St. Gall is well worth the trek.

If you are on the trail of Switzerland’s Celtic past, the impressive Laténium museum and park on the Lake Neuchâtel is a good place to start. It has a wonderful collection of La Tène metalwork, pottery and jewellery, as well as objects from settlements as far back as the Palaeolithic Era.

The most amazing artefacts, I think, are words. I grew up in a place called Dún Laoghaire in Ireland. We have a lot of dun- placenames in Ireland, from the Irish word for ‘fortified place’.

But I didn’t realise that the -don placenames in Switzerland – like Yverdon – come from the same older, common Celtic word. The list goes on: Rhone, Brig, Winterthur, Solothurn are just a few of the many Swiss placenames derived from the original Celtic names.

If you can make it to Fribourg on Friday, the festival team will be glad to welcome you at Centre Le Phénix, and we’ll send you home with some Irish sweets. Enjoy your St. Patrick’s Day celebrations wherever you are. Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig oraibh go léir!

(Photo above by Nick Thompson used under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 2.0, from https://www.flickr.com/photos/pelegrino/3740029289/ )

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