Fennelly’s of Callan served as the venue for two eagerly-awaited book launches.
Etaoin Holahan, celebrated curator of the award-winning arts café in Upper Bridge Street, welcomed two different authors with their widely diverging but equally compelling tales to tell.
Callan man Philip Bryan left his secure nine-to-five job in the retail industry almost a decade ago after opting to break out of a cosy if demanding routine to explore other career options.
He has a passion for travel. He longed to visit a list of countries.
So he went globe- trotting, taking in as many of his favoured destinations as he could.
He trekked across Australia, America, Jordan, Cambodia, and Israel, before setting his eyes on China.
He underwent a kind of metamorphosis during his stay in Jordan that caused him to question his attachment to a humdrum job and life routine.
In a drastic career change, he studied via an intensive online course and landed a plush teaching position in Guiyang, a city in China’s Guizhou Province.
He’s been plying his educational skills successfully there for the past eight years, a period that included Covid lockdowns.
That was a huge achievement in its own right, but Philip is a restless spirit and he saw another opportunity arising from his travels.
He’d been recording his travel adventures in diaries and journals and, though he hadn’t up to that point been an avid reader, he relished the challenge of penning a book telling the world of his experience.
He developed a passion for reading and research that were almost on a par with his penchant for travel, set about drafting a manuscript, and, after a lot of hard graft, revisions, soulful reflection, and copious submissions to publishers, eventually found a home for his literary project.
His book Squat Toilets and Chopsticks is a must for anyone with unfulfilled dreams of world travel, or who’s hoping to find the courage and imagination to change career, at whatever age.
Officially launching the book, Councillor Joe Lyons complimented Philip on joining the ever-growing list of Callan authors, apart from his achievement in turning his life around in such a spectacular and stranger-than-fiction way.
He hoped readers would be inspired by the wondrous anecdotes and observations in the book to break barriers in their own lives and reach for the stars.
Squat Toilets and Chopsticks is available from Kilkenny bookshops at £9.99 €11.87).
Spiritual journeys…
The second book concerned travel of a different kind: The spiritual journeys of Eddie Gilmore; hailed as the intellectual powerhouse of the L’Arche residence in Callan.
Eddie, like Philip Bryan, has also travelled widely but is driven by another ambition and mindset.
His book The Universe Provides is contemplative and full of down-to-earth wisdom.
In his capacity as CEO of the Irish Chaplaincy, Eddie was active for years in supporting Irish people in Britain, including prisoners and the marginalized.
He seeks to make this sad old planet a better place for everyone and his book might be seen as another step in his long life of service to God and humanity.
He believes that we can find miracles and divine guidance in the most unexpected places and he fills the book with examples of these.
His attitude to life might be summed up by a line from the Doris Day song: If I can help somebody as I pass along then my living will not be in vain.
As he travelled by foot, bus, train, and bicycle though many lands, somewhat echoing Philip Bryan’s exploratory zeal, Eddie found further evidence of the inherent worth of every human being, and confirmation that people matter more than politics, material wealth, or institutions.
In villages, lonely mountainous regions, densely populated cities and a myriad of off-the-beaten track locales…wherever his travels took him…the need for a spiritual dimension to life was always apparent.
He shared his own spiritual insights with all those he met. Whenever and wherever possible he has sought to light a candle of hope in a world that all too often grows dark, uninviting, oppressive, and seemingly hopeless.
The Universe Provides should have a special appeal to those of a deeply spiritual or religious persuasion.
It will undoubtedly strike a chord too with the general reader…anyone in fact who likes to see the good in people in even the worst situations, and those who wish to promote communication, tolerance, and understanding, instead of division, xenophobia and sectarianism.
It’s a timely book for the fraught world of 2024, a happy and an accessible read for all who strive, whatever the odds, to look on the bright side of life.
Eddie is also a gifted singer and following the book launches he entertained the audience at on guitar, assisted by poet-songwriter Peter Brabazon
Priced at £9.99 €11.87), The Universe Provides is available from most bookshops.
