Off the Record! Cherishing rural Ireland with Limerick author Jim O’Brien

AS HE is about to launch his new collection of reflections on rural living, Kildimo author and columnist Jim O’Brien chats with the Limerick Leader/Limerick Live.

The second collection of O’Brien’s weekly musings, Matters of Great Indifference, is a selection of pieces published in the Farming Independent over the last two years.

According to the author, his writings find themselves between anything and everything. “Generally, it's about rural life and the kind of things that affect me and the kind of things that I see affecting the people around me. Everything from the war in Ukraine to getting a new dog to the departure of the Queen.”

While his first collection was inspired by his travels, O’Brien describes this volume as more reflective. For him, one of the most challenging stories to write about was the tragedy that happened last October in Creeslough, County Donegal.

“I avoided it because it’s so close to home, they were just people like us, who went down to the local petrol station shop to get something, and never came home. I found that difficult to face into writing, but once I got into it, I found it was kind of cathartic. It was a piece that reflected everything about rural life that we value and that we love in terms of community life - how people just rallied around and did what needed to be done in the face of absolute tragedy”, he said.

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On a lighter note, O’Brien can’t help but laugh as he talks about longing for the food he used to eat as a child. “We had a thing called spotted dog - I saw one in the shop and I bought it. My wife thought I was going into existential reverse,” he laughed.

As his children left home for college, he reflects: “I have three daughters, and they’ve all left home, we have an empty nest for the first time – so I wrote about that experience of letting them go.”

Mentioning the piece ‘My legacy will be a thing with strings’, he explains: “It’s about one of my daughters, who took up the guitar during the pandemic, and now she’s doing musical theatre. It’s really a piece about watching her quietly, taking up an instrument that changed her life.”

O’Brien is keen to mention the book is not all serious. “I find lots to smile and laugh about. The title comes from my grandfather who went to the pub most nights to drink a few pints, play a game of cards and discuss what he called ‘matters of great indifference’.”

Through sixty-nine stories, the collection cherishes those places in rural Ireland where “you’ll find somebody walking along the road who knows not only just the location of who you’re looking for, but also their phone number.”

As this reporter is about to ask him who he would like to have dinner with, dead or alive, his new puppy, Céile briefly interrupts us.

Alongside his long-time friend and neighbour Michael McGrath, and his wife, Louise Donlon, he would like to invite Yuval Noah Harari – the author of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind.

“He’s a great Israeli philosopher and thinker, and he has written the most amazing books about humanity. He has a huge understanding of history, I think it would be fascinating”, he concluded.

Published by Limerick Writers' Centre, Matters of Great Indifference, Volume II, will be launched in Kildimo - where O’Brien “first clapped eyes on the planet.”

Presented by broadcaster Darragh McCullough, the event will take place this Friday at 8pm in the Seven Sisters Pub.