Kildare author Jane Gormely launches new book , Seat by the Fire – Craicly Stories

Kildare's own Jane Gormely has a new book that features many Kildare tellers and locations. A Seat by the Fire – Craicly Stories for Ireland: part memoir, part manifesto, part celebration of the Irish gift for oral storytelling and social gathering, this book is about the oldest remedy for loneliness this country possesses: being together.

Feauturing Derrymullen Farm – the straw shed where Craicly began; Jane Gormley and Willie Mulhall; Larchill Arcadian Garden, Kilcock – the last surviving ferme ornée in Europe; Claire Davenport – Kilbrook; Maura McNamara – Naas; Damien O'Sullivan – Derrinturn and Ricky Milligan – Robertstown, this publication has lots to interest Kildare readers.

As Craicly grew from farm shed to Púca Festival, from Ballyvolane House in Cork to the candlelit dining room of Stradbally Hall in Laois, Jane began to understand something she hadn't anticipated: that she needed the craic every bit as much as anyone else. Warm, funny and quietly radical, A Seat by the Fire arrives at a moment when Ireland is rediscovering its oldest tradition, the seanchaí is returning. As Jane puts it: 'Storytelling evenings are intended to simply be sociable and fun, but they have a therapeutic effect.' Illustrated throughout with 30–50 photographs of real gatherings, candlelit straw sheds, Púca Festival and Ireland's historic private houses – including Stradbally Hall and Ballyvolane House – this is the perfect Christmas gift: the kind of book you press into someone's hands and say: This is us. This is what we're here for.

It closes with a practical Your Story Party Kit – guidance for readers who want to host their own Craicly – which gives this book an afterlife as a toolkit. Photographs of real gatherings, candlelit straw sheds, Púca Festival and Ireland's historic private houses bring these magnificent spaces to life.

Very much from our oral tradition the stories are Irish people's own voices - like having a conversation with a friend - in the age of AI - these stories are definitley not.

Jane Gormley is the founder of Craicly Stories, a social storytelling movement that brings people together in some of Ireland's most atmospheric and historic spaces, drawing together strangers and communities through the ancient Irish tradition of oral storytelling.

The book is published by Mercier Press. This is Jane’s first book.