The Rowan Oak by Anthony Morgan
A new book from long-time linguist and Hispanic - and Irish expert Anthony Morgan. Complex, considered and beautifully crafted this is a saga of lyrical allusion and brutal historic story telling.
We begin in the Garden of the Hesperides, their myth frames the narrative from the outset , yet only when deep – and committed – to the characters do we recognize their significance. Typical of Anthony Morgan’s subtle style. The Rowan Oak is an adventure . Green -eyed Orla on the shores of Kerry witnesses the horrific catastrophe of the Spanish Armada. Blown of course by unexpected wild weather, the great fleet of Philip 11 had waited in vain for the Duke of Parma and his overland army to their agreed assembly on the Northern coast of France. But the army never came. And meantime the wily English sailed fire ships among the hapless, helpless grand galleys of Spain’s once proud navy. Desperate and with no options the Spanish cut anchor and surrendered to the whims of the weather. Blown of course they struggle an escape around the coast until many meet a terrible fate, crushed and beached on the Western Irish coast.
Which is where young Orla finds and rescues Daniel, a helpless survivor lost on the rocks. As the reader presses on ,heart racing, Morgan sets the scene . Convincingly he manoeuvres the couple into a dangerous desperate landscape overrun with vicious English soldiers, who already despise the Irish for their Catholicism and hold a hot hatred of their vulnerable life and culture. Morgan scatters enough accounts of merciless attacks on families and rebels alike, to convince us that here, life is fragile and frankly terrifying. And yet this is a novel steeped in the beauty of the nature around the now fugitives, lovely landscapes bring the soft rain and teeming wild birds and animals to life, a salve to the tension the couple now face as they flee down the River Shannon. And the stories they tell all day and night as they scramble for survival, more wonderfully wrought by the author are full of colour and life. We hear of the myths and mysteries of Orla’s people – and Daniel’s tale of life as a naval officer, his family in Seville and the beauty of his homeland. And not just here told – Orla and Daniel both speak English -but the dialogue is determinedly diverse. Hard to follow at first, the switch to Irish or the transfer to snatches of Spanish -but the web of storytelling is woven in both tongues and the book is richer for it.
Through Amazon the book is available from Lane Publishing.
