When I first concieved the Shooting Shrink Series, I named my protagonist Dr. Tom Reynolds after my grandmother and my grandfather on my mother sides. My Mom's maiden name was Helen Reynolds; her parents were Michael Reynolds and Anne Conway, both of whom immigrated from Ireland at the beginning of the last century. Just last month I returned from Lisheenavalla, county Galway, Ireland where after days of research in Dublin and follow-up research in Galway City, I discovered Anne Conway's birth house in Lisheenavalla.
It will be my duty and delight to expand my scope as a writer and begin a non-fiction story of my discovery of my Irish roots and, simultaneously to apply for Irish citizenship. On our last night in Dublin, my wife and I met a group of Americans in a pub who had spent the last ten years looking for their roots unsucessfully. WHen they asked me, I shared that from first idea to find my "Irish writer" roots to success was less than a year. They shared my joy over pints of Guiness. I was already daydreaming of the large number of book awards in Ireland. More later.
Michael, Judith, Lisheenavalla Village historian Julia and granddaughter
Julia Conway Michael Padriach Conway
Both second cousins o.r.
My grandmother Anne Conway's birthplace