A NOTE ON NAMES

What to do with all these Irish names? Too beautiful to replace with English versions, they are nevertheless a daunting mouthful for an Anglo reader and nearly impossible to pronounce correctly without coaching. I’ve settled on this solution: I’ve kept most names as I found them (usually the simplest of the available variants), and provided a pronunciation guide (Who’s Who—and How to Say It, p. 224) that is no more than a rough approximation. But you know what? It’s a story, and whatever pronunciation you hear in your own head will do just fine. Loo-ayn does not, to my ear, sound as pretty as Loo-in-ya, but my heroine, Luaine, will answer to either one.

In a couple of cases, I’ve replaced an Irish place name with a simpler spelling currently in use. If you go to Ireland today, you can visit the Cooley Hills, so I saw no need to puzzle the reader with “Cuailnge.”

And finally, I have omitted the fadas, or accents, from all Irish words, since they are no help to a North American reader.