A Dance in Donegal
Immersed in Irish culture after six years of living in Ireland (Donegal and Galway), Deibel’s passion for the country and people shine through. Her winning combination of setting, customs, and romance create a lyrical tale. She includes a glossary of Gaelic terms, adding to the authenticity.
This novel is visually rich in emerald hills, white-washed thatched cottages, warm hearths complete with freshly baked brown bread, steaming tea and the sweet aroma of peat fires. Although set in the 1920s, it warms with the nostalgic charm of a long-ago time, cf. Little House on the Prairie.
Though sensitive and prone to frequent blushing, tears and prayers, her main character, Moira Doherty, emerges as a strong heroine who encompasses themes of faith, compassion, and resilience through adversity. Ambivalent to uproot herself from Boston to fulfill her mother Noreen’s dying wish, she hears her mother speak to her in recurring dreams and accepts the vacant teaching position in the fictional seaside village of Ballymann in County Donegal, Northern Ireland. Deibel sets up the conflict early in the novel with antagonists old Buach O’Boyle, with his threat and bone-chilling cackle, and disrespectful Aedach (AY-joc), her twelve-year-old student, whose pranks soon escalate to veiled threats.
Welcoming and embracing Moira are memorable characters: motherly Brid with her superstitions; fatherly thatcher Colm; Peg, his kindly wife, wise in the ways of herbs; handsome Sean, her love interest. Readers will be treated to a sweet love story, scandalous mystery, and a lively evening of craic at Sinead Mc Gonigle’s Sunday night gatherings complete with stories, songs, tea, cake and a lively band of musicians playing heart-pumping reels and jigs on fiddles, flutes, bodhran and uileann pipes. Her mother always spoke of the joyful ceili. Moira finally gets to dance at Donegal.
