Patricia Monaghan (1946–2012)

You might not want to read this book if you aren't already gardening or at least have land that you can turn into a garden. Monaghan includes suggestions of how to create 13 mythologically- or magically-themed gardens, and it was torture reading through all these wonderful ideas with no way to create any of them myself. (No, apartment-dwellers, this is not one of those books with a plan or two that you can put together on a balcony; although the Fairy Garden might work as a container garden, show more you really do need a plot of land for most of these designs.)

But the gardens are only the last part of the book. In the first part, the author writes about the spirituality of gardening. She includes meditations on the seasons as they relate to gardens, discussion of gardening techniques, and suggestions for adapting Pagan/Wiccan rituals so that they can be held outside in gardens. I thought this earlier section got a bit too heavily psychological at times, but I liked how it encouraged linking spirituality and gardening and maybe I can even make one or two of her ideas work with my houseplants. show less

I found this book to be reaffirming and empowering after having to deal with some religious intolerance recently. It's a nice balance to the Christian devotional poetry (e.g. psalm-sonnets by Anne Locke) I've studied. Some poems are better than others, but there are a lot of beautiful lines throughout Patricia Monaghan's text.

A travelogue, covering decades, of a woman traveling to the land of her ancestors to help discover what makes her who she is. There is a lot of new age woo-woo stuff, but I like that if I find it believable. In this case I did. Perhaps because she really seems to know her Irish myths and legends, and those, along with some history, are interspersed with her experiences. Well written. I liked it quite a bit, even if the red-haired girl of the title was not a bog body but rather a fairy who show more would lure unsuspecting men out to her house: ruins in the midst of a bog. Naturally, the men were never seen again. show less

This is a book for fans of Ireland, the Goddess, Pagans, Christians, and mythology. I highly recommend it.

A US author of Irish descent, Patricia tells of visits to Ireland over the years. She writes about searching for locations from Irish myth, such as entering faeryland and visiting the source of the Shannon looking for the salmon of wisdom. She also describes visiting different sacred sites at auspicious times, such as: lighting the Beltaine fires at Uisneach, the Mountains of the show more Cailleach and the Paps of Anu on different Lughnasadhs, Morrigan's cave on Samhain, Newgrange for winter solstice, and County Kildare for Imbolc.

She explores Irish culture and politics, always coming back the the land and the people. Her description of re-lighting the Sacred Flame of Brigit at Kildare gives me chills every time I read it. Patricia says this book came out of requests from friends for travel recommendations in Ireland. It has certainly made me want to take the trip even more.

(This review also appears at Amazon.com). show less