Fascinating Irish mythology books set in Mayo
Dr Roddy O'Sullivan pictured with his West of Ireland Trilogy. Two of the books are set in Mayo, namely Westport House and Clare Island.
Roddy O’Sullivan always wanted to write adventure stories for Irish teenagers. By launching his three-book Fomorian series for 9-14 year-olds, he’s done it. , and are all set in the west.
The renowned environmentalist has been coming to Mayo for 40 years and considers it his ‘spiritual home’. So it is no surprise it would so heavily inspire his West of Ireland Trilogy. Indeed, most of the writing was done from his holiday home at Rosmoney, outside Westport.
The seeds for the books were sown in his Dublin national school when his teacher described the Fomorians as "one-eyed monsters who lived in underwater caves". It captured his imagination there and then.
“Each book title carries the word secret for a good reason − a three-thousand-year-old mystery lies beneath each cover,” Roddy explained.
The backstory involves Ireland’s earliest colonists, the mysterious Fomorians. In 1492 BC, after escaping their earthquake-stricken Greek island of Thera, the islanders (Therans or future Fomorians) rescue a group of cyclopes before sailing to Ireland. In the Battle of Moytura between the Fomorians and another settler group, the Tuatha Dé Dannan, the Fomorians are wiped out. The wretched survivors take refuge in sea caves. Since then, their original two-syllabled name has stood – Fo being the Irish word for under, Moire meaning the sea – undersea dwellers. Against all odds, the Fomorians survived and prospered.
sees 14-year-old Shane Donnegan arrive in Ireland from Australia. Following his mother’s death, he emigrated as a toddler with his dad, but eleven years later returns to attend school. He’s flabbergasted when he smashes the school’s swimming record, learns he can speak Ancient Greek and sees in the dark.
Nobody can figure out why he’s so different from other teenagers. Visiting Westport House, Shane and his four friends discover the owner of the House, Lord Dunraven, is cloning humans to supply body parts for the global transplant market. Shane confronts Dunraven and eventually brings Dunraven’s organisation crashing down but this only increases his friends’ mystification as to Shane’s real identity.
In , Shane is convinced that he’s some sort of freak. On a picnic to Clare Island, he encounters a cyclops, is dragged into the subterranean Fomorian Kingdom, and sentenced to death as an intruder. With the help of Elatha, a beautiful Fomorian girl, he escapes into the island’s subterranean vastness where he learns who and what he really is. Shane also learns he can only escape by swimming underwater through the Kingdom’s maze of flooded caves. Will he make it?
In , Shane gains work experience aboard an Irish Naval ship. After digging up a massive portion of an unknown species of dinosaur shellfish, Shane convinces the ship’s captain to explore the sea caves below the Dun Aengus Fort. Here they find a wrecked 18th-century whaling ship, a graveyard and an iron chest. It leads to a spectacular discovery, which we cannot give away here!
Each book is a modern page-turner, built around ancient history, thought-provoking plots and sprinkled with youthful humour. Roddy O’Sullivan says he’s already been approached by a consortium with plans to turn his books into a TV series.
Roddy O’Sullivan is an environmentalist, writer and scientist and was a environmental columnist for 20 years. The founder of Ireland’s Anti-Salmon-Farm crusade, he publishes, broadcasts and campaigns widely on environmental issues, especially those impacting Ireland’s waterways and their threatened wildlife.
The books will be launched at a ceremony in Westport House on Thursday next, May 16, between 5pm and 7pm. All are welcome.
