Welcome to 'The books that shaped me' - a Good Housekeeping series in which authors talk us through the reads that stand out for them. This week, we're hearing from Dr Mary McAleese

Mary was born in Belfast in 1951. In 1975 she was appointed Reid Professor of Law at Trinity College Dublin, and in 1987 she became Director of the Institute of Professional Legal Studies at Queen's University Belfast. She was elected President of Ireland in 1997, and re-elected unopposed in 2004. Since stepping down as President in 2011, she has earned a PhD in canon law while emerging as a forceful critic of the institutional Church's misogyny.


How have books impacted your life?

I was born into a Catholic family in post-Second World War Northern Ireland, a forgotten outpost of the British Empire where an unreconstructed form of Protestant Britishness conspired to render Catholics second-class citizens. A few days after my birth, as the first of my parents’ nine children, I was baptised into the Catholic Church where a virulent and irreformable form of misogyny conspired to render women second class citizens, apparently also with the benediction of God.

With eight younger siblings and sixty first cousins, most within visiting orbit of one another, you can see why I loved to hide away with a book. How I adored those books about boldly adventurous children, adult disasters averted by smart kids, and mean adults trounced by courageous children…

The childhood book that's stayed with you?

My favourite childhood book is a slim little volume entitled My First Communion whose cover depicts idyllic childhood innocence. The content, while a tad pious, is not in the least carping but reassuring to a child that she is loved, is capable of love and can change the world through love. I remain amazed that it was a gift from my then fifteen-year-old aunt bought with what was likely her first meagre pay packet as an apprentice hairdresser. The book brings me back to a yearning for innocence.

Your favourite book of all time?

The Flight Of The Heron: Large Print

The Flight Of The Heron: Large Print

The Flight Of The Heron: Large Print

£10 at Amazon

D.K. Broster’s The Flight of the Heron, my favourite book of all-time, is an historical novel set during the mid-eighteenth century Jacobite rebellion in Scotland. Apart from bequeathing me an enduring love of the Scottish Highlands, its strong themes including cultural and political oppression, revolution and human rights and the tragedies which await courageous friendships forged across deadly divides, all helped me comprehend the history which had shaped my world and how to avoid it contaminating the future. I appreciate still the book’s genteel refinement around romance and that the reclusive Broster never bothered to disabuse the public of the assumption that she was male.

The book you wish you'd written?

Faber & Faber The Poisonwood Bible

The Poisonwood Bible

Faber & Faber The Poisonwood Bible

Now 21% Off

The book I wish I had written is The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, the story of an American Christian family’s sojourn in the Belgian Congo. The Price family, mother and four daughters, is headed by a Christian zealot and all round un-charming pastor father. The madcap nature of his undertaking is told through the eyes of the unfortunate women in his life. Luckily they have wells of humour, humanity, cynicism, intelligence and endurance with which to describe the horror of their father’s bizarre pursuit of his own sainthood and their eventual estrangement from him.

The book that uplifts you?

Abacus The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency Book 1

The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency Book 1

Abacus The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency Book 1

Now 50% Off

The book that uplifts me is not just one book but the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series set in Botswana by Scottish lawyer and novelist Alexander McCall Smith. Evil never triumphs in these modest stories which unfold in almost indolent fashion. Detective Ramotswe takes the reader on a ramble through Botswana’s byroads and the changing times in her beloved country when its age-old gracious courtesies and kindliness are under threat from the incursions of boorishness and disrespect. These are great reads when you just want a book that makes you feel happy.

Here’s the Story by Mary McAleese is out now, published by Sandycove.

Penguin Ireland Here’s the Story: A Memoir

Here’s the Story: A Memoir

Penguin Ireland Here’s the Story: A Memoir

Now 26% Off

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