Maggie Barrett is my great grandmother. She died where she lived, in Ballina, on the west coast of Ireland.

My mother, Maureen, is likely the only person still living who knew Maggie. At 89 years of age, and having lived nearly seven decades in New Zealand, Maureen’s childhood memories of her grandmother remain crisp and detailed. I was brought up on stories of Maggie, who was the kindest and loveliest grandmother a child could wish for.

Two decades ago, I resolved to find Maggie’s grave, to erect a headstone and to chronicle Maggie’s life for her descendants. Despite my best efforts, my great grandmother still lies lost somewhere in the soil of Old Leigue Graveyard so, without a grave or a headstone, this book is, for now, the only tangible declaration that Maggie Barrett lived and died.

I have remained, in this book, faithful to every discovered document and to every family memory. Where these ‘snapshot’ sources have fallen short, I have sought to draw the most plausible inferences from them and, on this foundation, I have imagined the landscape of Maggie’s life from her perspective.

Maggie begins her story with her grandparents in the early 1800s, in the Townland of Behybaun.

This is the story of Maggie Barrett, a remarkable woman with one hell of a back story.