Garry Shannon

When I go away, I can’t seem to leave Co Clare or music behind. I’m as fond of Baldacci blockbusters as the next guy, but I could as easily be going through Vallely’s Companion to Irish Traditional Music with a highlighter – or reading PJ Curtis’s Notes from the Heart for the fifth time.

PJ Curtis is a fascinating maverick, a descendant of blacksmiths whose forge flame had smouldered and sparked since the 1500s at a medieval gateway to the Burren called Kilnaboy. The secrets of healing, for which his ancestors were equally renowned, were lost to future generations when Curtis spread his wings and went off to explore the world, though he eventually returned to the forge.

Holidaying in north Clare this year, as I rambled on broken July days among Burren dolmens, ring forts, cliffs, pubs and caves, my companion during the showers was his current novel, A Nightingale Falling. Set in the west of Ireland, it is a family saga, with doses of love, madness and rustic treachery that resonate with the hinterland. It’s a suspenseful story, spanning decades, involving a doctor from a long line of gifted physicians, Civil War intrigue, long-buried secrets, love triangles, murder – all in a day’s work in places such as Kilfenora!

Garry Shannon is a flute player with the Kilfenora Céilí Band