Sir, – Hobart is a long way from downtown Dalkey, but today, they came just that bit closer as two women reminisced over the late Maeve Binchy. The elder, retired and filled with nostalgia, retold how her husband worked with Binchy in London, years before Echoes or Circle of Friends became household names. “Maeve was nothing but a delight, so warm and spirited, and always visited when she came to visit Australia”, she said, “although she did tell us that we had our morning tea set up all wrong”. They were both so saddened to hear of her passing.
The younger, a bookseller and Irish expat, shared the same school and neighbourhood as dear Maeve and remembers the big green book jacket of Light a Penny Candle on her Mum’s shelf, borrowing it to read barefoot in the garden, back when the summers were long and timeless.
Vale Maeve Binchy from us all here in Tasmania. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – The death of Maeve Binchy brings to mind a memory of more than five decades.
Picture a scene in the main hall in UCD in Earlsfort Terrace, a row of seating directly opposite the porter’s office. A circle of giggling female students surrounding a smiling bubbly figure and all agog at her every word. Surely a portent of things to come.
Sadly I never met Maeve personally. However, over time I watched with pleasure her many successes and excellent interviews, always picturing that scene long ago among her circle of friends. – Yours, etc,