Book review: Shining a light on Ballycotton

Carmel Harrington's 'The Lighthouse Secret' opens in Maine, USA, in 2023 and interspersed with the contemporary chapters are some set in 1951

Carmel Harrington: Mysterious family tale among the lighthouse community of east Cork. File picture: Patrick Browne

• The Lighthouse Secret 
• Carmel Harrington 
• Harper Collins, €19.60

It is a wonderful thing to have a novel set in Ballycotton and Garryvoe, Co Cork, especially as those littoral landscapes provide a dramatic backdrop of the brooding Sea. 

The eponymous lighthouse is, of course, necessitated by the rocky coastline, perilous for shipping in stormy weather.

However, the novel opens in Maine, USA where Irish emigrant Beth, now a grandmother, owns a house. 

It is 2023 and Mollie, her granddaughter, has fled her marriage and seeks solace with her father, Albie, who also lives in the home. 

Beth, the matriarch, has returned to Ireland for a few weeks and, on impulse, Mollie and Albie decide to fly over to join her.

Mollie has recently received an anonymous letter containing the typewritten words, ‘family secrets never stay buried’. 

When she arrives in east Cork Mollie finds a sheet of paper typed seemingly by the same machine, in her grandmother’s handbag which states, ‘you can’t keep this secret buried any longer. You have to tell the truth’.

Interspersed with the contemporary chapters are some set in 1951 involving the lighthouse-keeping community.

Harrington produces a credible exposition of life amongst the wives as they manage without their husbands while awaiting their return from shifts.

At this point, the dominant position in the household must be handed back to the men. For the keepers it is like being in the armed forces as, not only do they leave for the three weeks of their regular duties, they are rotated around Ireland every three years.

Mention is made of Hook, in Co Wexford, where the world’s oldest operational lighthouse still stands.

As for the women, they remain at home, keeping up appearances and representing the Commissioners of Lights, until they are uprooted and moved to another rocky outpost, far from their neighbours.

It is a life of service and one that requires sacrifice while providing status. 

Many of those involved are the sons and daughters of previous keepers and when Beth, now Mollie’s grandmother, was 17, it was expected that she would marry her father’s assistant, Ted. 

She was not convinced, especially after meeting a tall dark stranger at the visiting circus. Like Heathcliff, he is of Romany stock, but his trade is to travel from village to village performing on a trapeze.

During those very same days in 1951, Kathleen, mother to Beth and wife to the lighthouse keeper, Patrick Kenefick, comes across her own tall dark stranger. This is Charles Davis, more of a Mr Darcy-type with his smart clothing and dark brown eyes. 

He makes Kathleen’s “stomach flip” and she starts to take more trouble with her hair and, to her daughter’s surprise, begins applying lip gloss.

When Charles first approaches Kathleen she is in the process of signalling to Patrick, on the island across the bay. 

Semaphore is their only method of communication and in the earlier days of their marriage they would, by telepathy, arrive on their separate shores to send messages by two white cotton flags. In those days the words they transmitted were often ‘I love you’.

Now, although Kathleen needs to speak to her husband, he does not receive nor respond to that longing, and does not appear, across the waves, to reply in kind. 

Her daily existence is beginning to seem less than it once did, and she finds discontent creeping into her mind. 

Back home, surrounded by the trappings of wifedom, she speaks bluntly to daughter, Beth, advising her not to accept a proposal from Ted unless she is certain that she desires to step into her mother’s shoes and become, for better or worse, a lighthouse keeper’s wife.

What happens next becomes the secret that might not stay buried.

BOOKS & MORE

Check out our Books Hub where you will find the latest news, reviews, features, opinions and analysis on all things books from the Irish Examiner's team of specialist writers, columnists and contributors.