April’s Irish Heritage meeting saw Birmingham author Ann Cullen talk about the story and inspiration behind her latest book Deceit and Settling in the West. It was a very interesting session, where Ann spoke about her childhood move from Galway to Birmingham, her journey from Copywriter at the Birmingham Post and Mail to a creative writer, her sources of inspiration and how she is working to overcome a current case of writer’s block. A video of her talk is above, and below is Irish Heritage Vice Chair John Macintyre’s review of the evening:
Authoress Awakened
Salthill in Galway
The April Event of the Birmingham Irish Heritage Group presented local author Ann Cullen who read extracts of her latest novel – Settling in the West. This insightful novella is about two Birmingham Irish daughters who swapped urban Erdington for rural Galway and described their marriages to Galwaymen. It deals with their reactions to living in an ancient environment, where local customs persist, such as the lighting of a huge bonfire on Midsummer’s Eve – St Johns Night in June.
Settling in the West also entailed an exorcism of a sad spirit – Cath, who had been wrongly convicted of sorcery in 1692. Her only crime being an old woman in the woods, using herbs for healthy concoctions, but this was enough to have her hanged in the extremely unforgiving and fearful 17th century.
Ann Cullen fielded several questions about her Novella, especially concerning the Midsummer’s Eve bonfire, which many people agreed was an intrinsic part of rural Ireland today, where Christianity and the old pagan customs combined. Sagacious Sammy from Belfast remarked that the Irish Church had hijacked the old ways and incorporated them into its own beliefs.
A storm in Salthill
Mike Walsh asked her inspiration for her story, to which Ann replied it was based on her two daughters who enjoyed Salthill childhood holidays, and decided to revisit Galway where they met a couple of gorgeous Galwaymen and married them, and that Cath had been haunting rural Galway from 1692 until a recent exorcism. Ann Cullen was also questioned about the Evil Martha in her second story Deceit, which chronicled a Maniac Murderess in Meadowfield. She replied that thankfully it was mainly fiction, but also based and her experiences as a copywriter for the Birmingham Post and Mail where she had encountered all walks of life.
Irish Heritage Events are held one the first Wednesday evening of every Month upstairs at the luxuriously appointed Irish Centre in Digbeth Birmingham. Doors open from 7pm for a fresh exciting Event which commences at 7.30 pm. Complimentary Beverages and Biscuits are served afterwards from around 8.30 pm, and the general public are very welcome, so bring your friends.
I took a stroll down Cheapside today to take a look at what was left of the D&P Textiles warehouse after the massive fire yesterday. As you can see from the photos, quite a bit of damage has been done – the roof of the storage area has completely gone.
One of the guys clearing up said, “It’s made a lot of mess. But it’s made the news, it’s made this area famous.” Although I’d like to think Digbeth can be famous for a bit more than a fire, he’s not wrong:
BBC News reported on the ‘suspicious’ nature of the fire and the building’s asbestos roof, which apparently ‘poses no risk to the public’. Good to know.
The Birmingham Post quoted a lot of numbers – ’45 firemen tackled the blaze…ten engines, three main jets and a hydraulic platform had been used to douse the fire.’
The Express and Star disagreed with the Birmingham Post and said there were 60 firemen. They’ve got a picture of three of them squirting hosepipes at the blaze.
The Birmingham Mail predicted Monday morning ‘commuter misery’ due to resulting road closures, which I was surprised by as the Bradford Street entrance to Rea Street was open by the end of Sunday and Cheapside is not a major route road. Did anyone experience any problems this morning?
According to an update report on BBC News today, Managing Director of D&P Textiles Phil King has promised the factory will reopen soon, and ‘he hoped his workforce of 35 women would be back at their machines within the next couple of weeks.’ Let’s hope the mammouth clean-up operation he faces goes as smoothly as possible.
Thank God the only casualties were clothes. However, I did manage to find one surviving item – a lone piece red and gold ribbon. This now has a new home in the DiGpuss Shop of found items.
After having a very long, marathon sleeping session I think I’ve just about recovered from my 12-hour New Year sit-in in the new Birmingham Coach Station. It was a great night and surprisingly good fun – I cannot recommend enough that everyone spends a little time watching the world go by in the nearest coach or train station, to experience where you live as a traveler. You’ll see a truly different side to your area and get to talk to some very interesting people passing through it, who all have their own stories to tell.
Midge passes through before going to a Sheldon house party
I’ll be writing up some of the stories I got to hear here under the heading NYE Express, a title thought up by Midge, who kindly popped by to see me with a little something to see me through the night. He wasn’t the only one:
Ben Mabbett was at the station waiting for me when I arrived with a little bottle of bubbly in a brown paper bag, which was ever so thoughtful.
On the morning of New Year’s Eve I was on BBC Radio WM chatting to Daz Hale – you can listen again here for one week (I’m at the tail-end of the show, roughly 2:18 in).
Roughly twenty-two hours later I was back in Radio WM studio chatting to Brett Birks about the experience. The programme is not available to listen again but Alan Colson took a sneaky audioboo:
I managed to collect quite a few stories during the night. Watch this space for future NYE Express posts to read all about them.
