By Sabina Clarke
It has been said that all the stories are in families—and this extraordinary beautifully told, highly imaginative and gorgeously illustrated true story about Joe Collins, the author’s great uncle is haunting and gripping to its very last sentence. I was transported!
The story begins with the author’s visit to Joe Collins whom he has not seen in 12 years.
It was shortly after his mother died while he was a “mature” art student at Darlington Art College after just having finished his career as a gardener. The loss was great and he needed to know about the Ireland his mother came from and never spoke about. She said she would never go back or speak of Lismore because it held too many sad memories.
Available in the UK
https://www.jazzfusionbooks.co.uk/product/but-for-ireland-i-d-not-tell-her-name
Gerard Taylor knew little of his mother’s life in Ireland before she moved to London so he saw his great uncle Joe as the last living link to his mother’s past-- the only living link which made his journey more urgent.
He recorded his uncles memories and promised to fulfill his uncle’s last wish.
The first part of his journey was the discovery of his family’s history in Lismore, County Waterford where his great-uncle and his mother were born. He records the words of Collins family members and friends – anyone with information about his family and their memories of the Old Ireland and the War of Independence that Joe Collins fought in and the memories of the villagers and the unmarked graves of the Famine dead and the hardships remembered and passed down from generations during the Famine all recounted to him on his journey to his mother’s and his great uncle’s birthplace.
The second part of his journey is where myth merges with fact and the author’s imagination soars. It is where we enter the land of banshees and fairies and echoes of a time when Ireland was a land of ancient bards and storytellers like the famous blind poet Raftery-- where there is a thin boundary between this world and the other-world.
As the author embarks on his promise to fulfill his great uncles’ last wish I am transfixed –suspending disbelief and embracing the vision the author sees where there is no separation between this world and the other-world and myth takes on a life of its own.
Gerard Taylor’s portraits of his great-uncle Joe Collins, his mother Annie Collins (Taylor) and his grandmother Mary Collins are evocative. He writes like a poet. His storytelling is so powerful that factual and mythical become one.
This is a work of art where mood and memory meet.
Postscript: In a conversation with the Gerard Taylor, he confided, “It was sometime after the book that I kept feeling that the book was not enough– I felt that I wanted something tangible to acknowledge Joe’s last wish to be with his wife and daughter.”
“So even though my great -uncle Joe Collins was buried in England-- I found a way to fulfill his last wish by creating an alternate reality. My son Daniel and I laid a new headstone --- replacing the small broken rusting metal cross that seemed so forlorn and misplaced amongst the manicured graves-- and finally my great-uncle Joe was united in spirit with Delia and their daughter Cara who died with her mother in childbirth.”
About the Author:
Mural artist and author Gerard Taylor was born in London to immigrant parents. His father was a South African sailor and his mother was from Ireland. They met and married in London during World War II.
Gerard was raised in London and married Linda at the age of 17. He had 4 children, adopted 1 child and fostered 220 children. After sailing around the world in the merchant Navy, Gerard, became a gardener working in the gardens of stately homes. Then he became a mural artist in 1980 working internationally in Italy, Saudi Arabia, Barbados and the USA.
His mural work stopped in 2010 when he lost sight in one eye. Ironically, this illness gave him the opportunity to create artwork for his book and after 30 years, bring it to its conception.
He now lives in Cornwall and is still painting and writing.
