Alice Taylor lives in the village of Innishannon in County Cork, in a house attached to the local supermarket and post office. Since her eldest son has taken over responsibility for the shop, she has been able to devote more time to her writing.
Alice Taylor worked as a telephonist in Killarney and Bandon. When she married, she moved to Innishannon where she ran a guesthouse at first, then the supermarket and post office. She and her husband, Gabriel Murphy, who sadly passed away in 2005, had four sons and one daughter. In 1984 she edited and published the first issue of Candlelight, a local magazine which has since appeared annually. In 1986 she published an illustrated collection of her own verse.
To School Through the Fields was published in May 1988. It was an immediate success, and quickly became the biggest selling book ever published in Ireland. It launched Alice on a series of signing sessions, talks and readings the length and breadth of Ireland. Her first radio interview, forty two minutes long on RTÉ Radio's Gay Byrne Show, was the most talked about radio programme of 1988, and her first television interview, of the same length, was the highlight of the year on RTÉ television's Late Late Show. Since then she has appeared on radio programmes such as Woman's Hour, Midweek and The Gloria Hunniford Show, and she has been the subject of major profiles in the Observer and the Mail on Sunday.
Alice has written nearly twenty books since then, large exploring her village of Inishannon, and the way of life in rural Ireland. She has also written poetry and fiction: her first novel, The Woman of the House, was an immediate bestseller in Ireland, topping the paperback fiction lists for many weeks.
One of Ireland's most popular authors, her most recent book is And Life Lights Up.
Alice Taylor's second novel, a story of land, love and family set in rural Ireland. Sequel to The Woman of the House.
Alice Taylor guides us through the steps and ways to live a conscious life and focus on the goodness of the world around us. Alice also inspires the reader to be attentive to the here and now and embrace moments as they arise.
An extended memoir with reminiscences about the Author's friends, family members and even beloved animals that have passed away. A therapeutic book demonstrating a compassionate way of dealing with bereavement.
Alice began the year wondering how she would feel about reaching eighty. She was pleasantly surprised to discover that it was just another milestone on a journey that is still varied and interesting. Here she writes about these feelings, and the many pleasant and challenging events of her eightieth year.
Alice Taylor takes a journey back to the 1940s and 1950s in rural Ireland through the well-used schoolbooks that she has kept from that time. Poetry, legends, stories and history evoke a way of life, and pace of life, that's long changed.
Am I cocooning or self-isolating? In today’s climate both words mean the same thing, but it’s amazing the different picture each word paints in our subconscious. Alice Taylor explores wellbeing, what community now means and so many other topics thrown into sharp relief by the arrival of COVID19.
Alice Taylor takes her readers along the byways of Ireland and into the heart of the country. In stories by turn comic and poignant, she explores the character of family and friends, testing the bonds of concern and kindness which hold people together.
Irish cottages, the pleasures of walking in autumnal woods, a hens' hatching house and a country garden: these are just some of the elements in this varied patchwork quilt of views of rural life.
Alice Taylor takes us through her home, reflecting back on the routine of her family life growing up in rural Ireland in the 1950s - a time when food was home-baked and everything was reused. An uplifting account, full of nostalgia and wise words to treasure from Ireland's best-loved author.
Alice’s garden is her refuge. Inherited from Uncle Jacky, she introduces the great variety of plants and objects she has gathered – everything, of course, with its own unique and fascinating story, brought to life by a master storyteller.
Join Alice Taylor this Christmas as she welcomes us into her home and shows us the traditions of her family's Christmas. Alice looks back over her past Christmases and prepares for this Christmas.
This sequel to "The Woman of the House” and “Across the River" is a story of love for the home place and of the passions and jealousies it can inspire. A story of grief and trying to cope with loss, but also of resilience in the face of family tragedy.
Alice Taylor's poems have proved perennially popular. Some have been woven into her phenomenally successful memoirs, and she has published three previous books of poetry. Organized thematically, this substantial collection includes sections entitled "The Home Place", "A Village Romance", "Grief and Grace", and "Winter Ploughing."
The Irish nana is a repository of family history, memory and lore. Alice celebrates her own nanas, part of the generation born after the Great Famine. She herself is now a nana too, and explores the old and the new, the ‘then’ and ‘now’, the nana of yesteryear and of today, with her characteristic empathy and love.
Alice Taylor takes a nostalgic, loving look back to a family firmly rooted in tradition and humour and - in particular - the Christmas traditions of her childhood. With her unerring knack of bringing her readers into her home, her stories of a childhood Christmas are rich, warm and amusing, giving a wonderful insight into life as it was.
In a series of vignettes of life in her village, Alice Taylor reasserts the priorities of public space and local community. The Parish evokes and explores the positive values of community, which could be renewed and reinvigorated for a present and future that achieves harmony between comfort and the pressing need to respect the environment.
