Water is a place of redemption and transformation in novel

Author Roisin Maguire says those of us who stare at, sail on, bathe in, or dive into the great expanse of water will recognise that feeling of coming home, when we engage with the sea

Roisín Maguire writes of the alluring nature of the ocean for humanity through the years. Picture: Muiread Kelly

When I was six-months-old, I fell into the sea. We were on a battered old tub of a row-boat, the kind of thing Popeye would use to skim over the waves, and it was stuffed full of my cousins, sisters, my uncle the skipper, and me.

Uncle Mickey laughed at my mother who stood twisting her hands on the beach, and said that he knew what he was doing, and “sure it would be no bother, they would hold the Ba tight, and she’d be grand, we were only going for a wee skite round the bay”.