Longford in literature: Liz remembers Lanesboro

Basking in the sunshine on a warm Saturday morning and looking out on bay as cruisers traverse the Shannon waterway, I am reminded how lucky we are to live in such a beautiful and scenic area.

Lanesboro and Ballyleague has always been a warm and embracing community. Since the arrival of Bord na Mona and ESB in the early 50’s we have welcomed people from all the four corners to live amongst us.

The great diversity of people and cultures has given the area a tremendous cosmopolitan feel where strangers are always made to feel at home. The general comment made by both villagers and those stopping by our community is that we are without doubt privileged with its beauty and warmth.

Irish novelist and multi-award winning writer Liz Nugent has spent more than 20 years working throughout the Irish film, stage, theatre and television industries as well as writing five bestselling novels. She has received national and international acclaim for each of her five books since her first one ‘Unravelling Oliver’ back in 2014.

Her latest book, Strange Sally Diamond, published in March 2023, has already spent nine weeks at number 1 on the national bestsellers' list. The Sunday Times describes it as "Strikingly well-observed and consistently surprising".

And, most interesting of all, one of its locations is our very own village!

"I’d like the funeral service to be held in St John’s Church of Ireland in Lanesboro. It’s such a pretty church and the graveyard is a nice spot. I’m not going to make too many demands, but I’d love if you could arrange for the choir to sing ‘Be Thou My Vision’. I was in the school choir when I was a little boy. That was my favourite song, because we used to change some of the words around to make each other laugh. Oh dear, we got up to some mischief in those days."

Perhaps we could as a community invite Liz to Lanesboro for a visit to St John’s, and offer her a view in person of the beauty that lies within - and beyond - the stone walls?