The Long Road Home
Mary Lynch
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Book
€14.99
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Publication Date: 2010
ISBN: 978-1-907535-08-6
Category: Memoir
Type: Paperback
Price: €14.99
Mary Lynch grew up in rural County Fermanagh with eleven brothers and sisters, but this idyllic life came to an abrupt end the night she woke with a gun to her head and a British soldier ordered her out of her bed. The events of the next few years of what the world called the ‘Troubles’ left Mary deeply emotionally scarred, but it would take her many decades to acknowledge this. Years later, when the frightening memories of her past began to surface she realised that she would have to face the truth or live forever in a self-destructive spiral of work, exhaustion, illness, depression and medication.
The Long Road Home is the story of Mary Lynch’s journey back to acknowledging the pain and terror of her youthful experiences in what was effectively a war zone. Only then could she heal and move on. At another level, this book is about healing the pain of a nation by acknowledging its sense of abandonment and loss. Anyone who has ever suffered trauma will recognise and take solace from Mary’s inspiring story.
Writing in the South Belfast News, author Jude Collins wrote of The Long Road Home: 'Mary Lynch's story is not unique but that very fact makes it all the more poignant. She speaks for thousands as she tells her story.'
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About the author
Mary Lynch (Geraghty) was born in Lisnaskea, County Fermanagh, in 1959. After leaving school she worked in the Killyhelvin Hotel in Enniskillen. At the end of 1978 she left the North for Dublin and she spent six month sworking in Germany in 1979.
In 1980 she emigrated to New York, where she worked initially as a nurse’s aid, then in a real estate office. In 1986 he settled with her husband near Castlearea, County Roscommon, where he farmed and she boarded patients for the Western Health Board and bought, renovated and rented out property.
She has two children, a daughter, Roisin, born in 1987, and a son, Jarlath, born in 1990. The Long Road Home was her first book.