The Bright One

Molly O'Connor’s life was not an easy one. With six children and a husband who earned what he could as casual farmhand, fisherman, or drover, it was a constant struggle to keep her family fed and raised to be respectable. Of all her children, Breda - the Bright One - was closest to her heart. As, one by one, her other children left Kilbally, Kathleen and Kieran to the Church, Moira to marriage, the twins to war, so Breda, the youngest, was the one who stayed close to her parents. Breda never wanted to leave the West of Ireland. She though Kilbally was the most beautiful place in the world. Then tragedy struck the O'Connors and the structure of their family life was irrevocably changed. Reeling from unhappiness and humiliation, Breda decided to make a new life for herself - in Yorkshire with her Aunt Josie’s family. There she was to discover a totally different world from the one she had left behind, with new people and new challenges for the future.